Beginning
by Sakiku
Summary: This is a very dark fanfic centered around Gohan 2 years after the Cell games. Warning: don't read this if you don't like hinted rape, torture, or a lot of violence! Finally complete bonus chapter added
1. Otherworld

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Disclaimer: Nope, I do not own DBZ nor anything related to DBZ. In future chapters, I will use Denna, one of the characters of Terry Goodkind mentioned in 'The Sword of Truth'. She also does not belong to me.
Well, enough of the talk, enjoy the story.
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Beginning

Otherworld:

A purple-skinned man with a white Mohawk was kneeling in the middle of a huge, wonderfully and very expensively decorated room with a ceiling so high that it seemed to vanish into the sky. The walls were covered in silver-, gold-, and diamond-ornaments, but the most intriguing painting was the one on the floor. It was a shining circle, laid out with the most precious metals found in the universe. It consisted of a single line, wound so intricately that pictures could be seen, but for every observer the picture would be different. Many had tried to copy the design, but sooner or later, everyone had given up with a headache. It was said that the line actually moved on its own will and that every time a new design could be seen, though nobody was actually able to really prove it.

Tall, thin windows that were framed by fragile-looking columns created a melodious play of light and shadow in the room, making it seem fully illuminated but yet leaving places to hide from curious glances. Their glass-less openings showed some of the peculiar outside which consisted of a pink sky and grass so lush and green like none other in the universe. It was a very calm and soothing landscape, but all of that beauty could not reach the strange master of the place for he had other concerns at the moment. Eyes lowered submissively to the floor, fear clutching his heart with an icy hand, he mumbled:

"Yes, my Lord, I understand. But, forgive me my question, why do you come to me, one of your many servants?"

It was plain that he was not comfortable with the obedient demeanor he was displaying, as he could hardly keep himself under control, kneeling on the floor like that. He squirmed and trembled, never getting the air of being at ease. And he was also clearly frightened to the very core of his being by the omnipotent presence that resided in the marvelous room, that flowed through him, and that knew his every thought. He was not used to something being so great that he could only glimpse parts of it, never the whole.

Many colorful pictures filled his mind. Pictures of a tiring search lasting for endless centuries. Pictures of many representatives from different races and many potential candidates. None of them the right one to fulfill the job. Each and everyone of them physically or mentally broken after only a small fraction of the rigorous and cruel training program. 

Pictures of a young, humanoid boy with black, spiky hair, coal black eyes, and features that would be called handsome by his species. Pictures of the same boy with bright golden hair, turquoise eyes, and a very serious look etched on his face. Pictures of a terrible fight between a green, insect-like creature and the small boy. Pictures of the bug-like creature being defeated by that very same boy.

Shocked, the purple man gasped. He had seen that boy before, he was not an unfamiliar face, and then he realized the meaning of those pictures.

"He is YOUR next candidate."

__

Yes. He is. Pity on him. Knowledge how hard the training is. Anxiousness to meet the boy.

He was so out of his mind that he responded without thinking.

"I will bring him here so that YOU can talk to him about YOUR choice."

Suddenly, the intimidating, mind-numbing presence was gone. Exhausted, the purple man collapsed, panting as if he had just run a marathon. He hadn't realized how tense he had been. Why would HE choose a boy from the universe he was given watch over? Some of the pictures that he was able to pick out of the mental flood had shown a little bit of that training hell the boy was to undergo, and the purple-skinned being really did not envy him. In fact, he was quite sure that he himself would never survive that unholy program, and that a mere boy should be caught in that horrible vision...

But he could not defy HIM. HE had given HIS orders, and HE expected HIS orders to be carried out. All he could do was hope and pray fervently that the boy somehow would be able to survive and deal with the terrors that would be thrown at him.

Gathering his remaining strength, he shakily stood up and called for his long-time servant.

"Kibito, come here, I need your assistance."

A few seconds later, a huge, pink guy with long, white hair flooding openly down his back, entered the room through a door that had previously been hidden. He was clad in the same clothing as his master, wide blue pants and a long jacked trimmed with a red stripe at the edges, but he towered over his master like Goliath over David. 

"Yes, master?"

Kibito's voice was smooth and dark, as usual, and that ensured the small purple man. He was not afraid of Kibito, although Kibito might seem intimidating to a stranger with his gruff features and his constant scowl. But he had known Kibito for longer than most people could imagine, and Kibito had always been a dependable companion. Furthermore, looks were deceiving. If it had come down to them fighting despite their friendship, Kibito would have easily been defeated by him, a man only half his size, though infinitely more powerful. Collecting his thoughts, he addressed his servant curtly.

"Could you please transport us to Chikyou? I have business to attend to."

Kibito watched his master closely. His master's usually light purple, almost lavender colored skin had an unhealthy, grey teint, hinting at extreme exhaustion, and his normally sparkling blue-violet eyes were plain and dull, void of any reaction. His master seemed to be very uncomfortable and upset as he was trying to mask his fear by rudeness. But that didn't work, Kibito knew his master too well, and when he looked closer, he discovered that his master seemed to be trembling a little bit.

"What happened, master?"

The purple being cast his eyes downwards and shook his head, reliving the terrible meeting with the powerful and intimidating presence earlier. A cold shudder ran down his spine at the remembrance, bristling the hair on his neck in fear as if he was a dog.

"Am I so obvious?" 

A small chuckle escaped his lips when his head whipped up to meet Kibito's eyes. After long seconds when none of the two dared to move, the purple man finally defocused his glare as exhaustion had zapped up the last of his remaining strength. Staring off into nothingness, he sighed tiredly.

"Oh well, I might as well tell you. HE came to visit me. But I cannot tell you more. Now take us both down to Chikyou, to the highest power level."

Kibito was shocked and by now trembling as badly as his master. HE had come. He had never seen HIM, but he had heard stories about HIM. Stories which he believed to be as true as fairy-tales or the Chikyou-sei legend of Santa Claus. But now, he had to reevaluate them. If those stories should have a little bit of truth in them, if only a fraction of those stories were true, HE was overwhelming. HE was a being as high above his master as his master was above a simple kami. Forcing his voice to be steady, he replied shakily.

"Yes, master."

He put a hand on the Supreme Kai's shoulder and reached out with his senses across Otherworld, across the galaxy, to a small blue planet where the average representative of the resident species had a power level of 5 units. Thus the few high power levels stuck out like a sore thumb and were easily detected. He briefly wondered how such strong beings could reside on such a weak planet, but pushed it back to concentrate on teleporting. Then they both vanished, leaving only a faint trail of scent to witness that there had anyone recently been.

A/N: so how did you like it? Got any suggestions or comments? Don't hesitate, REVIEW! I'd be glad about every feedback, be it negative or positive, so don't be shy!


	2. Darkness

A/N: This is Gohan's first entry. I tried to make his character as realistic as possible considering the circumstances he is in, but I am not quite sure if I succeeded. Got any suggestions/demands/comments? Plz review!

A/N 2: I've decided to make this chapter a little bit longer, it fits better with my story. Thx to Angel-Shock/Shock-Angel, I tried to insert more descriptions. Also thx to Twain-Faces, and Nikora. I hope that I have fixed my settings, but I am not sure. Thx for pointing that out!

Somewhere dark:

Lying in a tiny black cell without any windows or other light sources, Gohan stared off into the dark void that surrounded him from all sides, shivering occasionally from the chill that crept from the floor through his clothes and deep into his heart. When he had first woken up in that room, he had instinctively raised his Ki wanting to block out the cold. 

Horror had struck. 

There had been no Ki he could raise. Or at least he had lost the touch to his Ki.

That was just great. He was in an unknown place for an unknown reason and he didn't have anything to defend himself with. 

At that instance fear had struck. It had been a deep, animalistic fear which had overridden every rational thought and had made his heart beat in a frenzied tact and let his eyes pop open as wide as possible. All his muscles had cramped up in an attempt to flee and he had choked on his breath deep in his throat.

He had thought his powers were a curse and that he didn't want them, but his reaction to the loss of them showed him quite clearly that he needed them as they were what his whole life had been built upon. He had been trained to be strong since the Radditz incident, he had been trained to rely on his power and to use it in difficult situations, and it had dawned on him that without it, he was completely helpless. He could do nothing more than the average human. Yes, now that he didn't have his strength any more, he realized its value and the big part it had played in his life. 

He had proven his worth for the first time in the battle against Radditz, when he had had a higher power level than his Dad and Piccolo together. This had made Piccolo train him and imprinted the concept into his brain that only being stronger is rewarded – by not getting beat up. The following series of events had only revolved around strength, the battle with Vegeta, and later the trip to Namek, the fights with Friezer's goons, and finally with Friezer himself. He had seen countless examples of the rule 'the strongest survive'.

The one year of peace while waiting for his Dad to return from outer space had changed nothing except letting him loose his edge, but when Trunks had come from the future to warn them about the androids, everybody was driven again by the need to get more power. The following three years had been a constant battle to become stronger, and they had culminated in the year spent in the Hyperbolic Time chamber, where his full power had surfaced for the first time. Then, in the battle against Cell, he had shown his worth because he had defeated the android, and that had made even Vegeta accept him as a full member of the Z-senshi (although he would never admit it). 

The years afterwards had also been dominated by strength – but in another way. He had been busy denying his power, cursing it for not being able to save his father. In a defiant reaction, he had given up on his strength, he had concentrated solely on studying, and he had been telling himself that everything would be better if he had not had those powers.

Now that he didn't have his strength any more, he realized for the first time how full of dangers life was and how much courage a simple human being had to have to live every day. There were so many ways to get killed, or at least seriously hurt, even a fall from only 30 feet would quite surely break his neck now. But also humans could survive with dignity, Bulma was one of the best examples. Physically, she was even weaker than the average male, but she could put everybody down with her sharp tongue – even Vegeta. No, heavens forbid, he did not consider Bulma weak. She was one of the toughest people on the planet besides his mother.

After some time, his panic had settled as he had accepted the loss of his Ki, and he had tried to move on and make the best out of the situation. He had set out to discover his whereabouts, but all he had come up with was that his confinement was only about 5 by 10 feet and that it was completely empty except for a small pot in a corner where he could relief himself. 

The only way out was a big metal door that covered almost a whole wall, and the door had been locked. He had tried to, but he couldn't open it, and that gave him the creeps. No mere door should have been able to confine him, and the walls shouldn't have caused any problem either, no matter how thick. A flick of his wrist and a small blast later, he should have been free. But he was denied access to his Ki. What would Bulma do in such a situation? She would surely find a solution, a way to get out. He thought back to the beginning.

Maybe it had something to do with the events just prior to his abduction. 

Not noticing the hard floor under his shoulders, he continued thinking. How exactly did he end up here? This question, he could only partly answer. 

It had all started when two strange aliens suddenly appeared in his room where he'd been studying thanks to his Okasan's dreams of him becoming a scholar. Ever since the Cell games had been over, she had done nothing else than make him study. Even while she was in labor with his new brother Goten, she had asked him about his work. 

Yeah. Goten. He was an exact copy of his father, down to the last hair that sprouted from his head in the familiar spiky fashion. That was still one of his sore spots from the Cell games. The pain of loosing his father had only scarcely lessened, and he believed that it would never be gone for his whole life. Inwardly, he hurt badly, but he always covered it up to the best of his abilities. He had to be strong for his mother, and especially for his new brother, because it was him who had taken his father's life. He could never make it up to them, although he tried to by being the perfect son and the perfect older brother. 

He had just been doing some math work when two Kis suddenly popped up behind him. The first moment, he had been so startled that he fell of his chair. Then, within a split second, he was on his feet, crouched down in a low fighting stance, powered up to just under Super Saiyan. His eyes narrowed as he was scanning their build and their appearances, trying to guess their intentions.

They were a rather strange couple. He had seen many strange things while traveling through space and met many strange people, but he had never encountered a pair as odd as them. One was a small, androgynous, purple-skinned man, about as tall as himself, with a white Mohawk, and the other one was a pink, 7-foot-tall giant with many wrinkles and a grumpy face. They both were dressed alike in a style he had never seen before, some kind of jacket with huge shoulder pads, and oriental looking pants. They didn't seem very strong, but what unnerved him the most was the aura they were emitting.

"Who are you and what do you want?" he hissed between clenched teeth.

The purple guy lowered his power level even further and raised his hands in a slow motion, palms face up, perhaps to show that he was unarmed and not willing to fight.

"There is no need to fear us, young one. You can check our Ki to see that we have no evil intentions."

He didn't relax a bit, Ki could be masked, just as he did to his, and so far they hadn't done anything to gain his trust. It would give him an advantage in battle if they thought that he feared them, but he had become quite rusty over the two years since the Cell games because the very rare sparring sessions with Vegeta did little to keep up his strength. From what he could sense, he was still a lot stronger than the pair, but he was far from being at ease with the two strangers. 

He repeated his question in an even more determined voice. 

The huge pink guy furrowed his eyebrows. He seemed to have taken offence at his blunt demand, and angrily chided him:

"This is no way to speak to the master of Kaios, the Kaio Shin!"

The purple man, just introduced as the highest God, sent the pink guy a scolding glare and interrupted with his quiet voice.

"Stop it, Kibito. He didn't know who we are, so I will excuse his behavior. And to your second question my boy, we have come here to introduce you to someone."

He had no idea what to think of that odd couple. They certainly were aliens and many aliens he had met could not be trusted like Friezer and his men. He weighed out the possibilities. On the one hand, nobody who wanted to do evil would have come straight to one of the strongest beings on the planet. They must have teleported in judging by the sudden appearance of their Kis, knowing where to find him, and if they were some villains, why have they not attacked him yet? On the other hand, they could just want to lull him into security and then attack when he least expected it. After all, why would the highest being in the universe want to talk to a simple 13-year-old boy?

"Because you are no ordinary 13-year-old boy, and there is a being even higher than me that has taken interest in you", said the purple man.

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Huh? He did a double-take. _Can he read my thoughts?_

"Yes, I can read thoughts, Son Gohan. This is a very important meeting, but I am not allowed to give you any further details. Come with us, and you will learn the reasons."

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The 'Supreme Kai' is here to take me to meet an even higher being. What the heck is that all about? Am I really going to believe this s***? I guess I would have to come with them to find out, but what if it is a trap? And what about Mom and Goten, they are going to miss me.

"No, it is not a trap, and they won't miss you."

Damn it! 

He cursed violently despite what his mother had taught him about not saying bad words.

__

He read my thoughts again.

"In the place I'll bring you to time goes differently, one hour there would only be a split-second here. And this is the last time I ask you. Will you come with us or not?"

He pondered the offer for some time, weighing each scrap of information he had.

__

Well, I guess I should. In case they are just some lying super villains, earth will have to deal with them sooner or later considering the tough luck we've had so far. And if they are telling the truth ...

What kind of being could be higher than a Supreme Kai and why do they want to see ME?

Warily, he stepped towards them.

"Fine, I will go with you."

The Kaio shin seemed extremely relieved and looked as if he had held his breath this entire time. Then, he commanded the pink guy:

"Kibito, bring us back to my palace."

Gohan jumped a little as Kibito's hand laid down heavily on his shoulder. Then, just like the Instant Transmission, the surroundings suddenly changed.

The following memories were just a blur to him, something must have tried to erase them to keep him in the dark about the situation. He could only vaguely remember a huge but empty room with gorgeous decoration like he had never seen before. The most astonishing thing in that room though was an intriguing painting that covered the whole floor. It was some kind of circle that seemed to change form and color the longer you looked at it. 

And that was where his memory had lapsed out. He knew that something very important had happened, but every single time he tried to think back to it, he got a headache and the brightly glowing, shimmering ornament that seemed to have burnt itself into his memory, filled his mind. 

He must have lost consciousness in that room because the next thing he could remember was waking up in that tiny, black cell about an hour ago, feeling the same kind of dread which overcomes you when you know that you have forgotten something very important, something crucial, but you can't remember what it was. 

The chill from the floor bit through the study clothes he had been wearing since he had been abducted, and he shuddered. He still didn't know whether the two aliens had spoken the truth or whether he was in the hand of the enemy right now, waiting for who-knows-what kind of fate. He shivered again, and this time not only because of the cold. Something was very wrong here, very wrong. The whole cell stank of pain, fear, and sweat from a previous owner, and he was quite sure that if he had some light, he would find dried blood spots. 

He choked down heavily on his fear, not allowing it to raise and take control over him. No matter which fate, he would bear it with pride and dignity. This would be the ultimate test of will and character, and he was always up to a challenge.

Wasn't he?

His senses hadn't been dampened at all, he still had the same keenness of smell and hearing as before. When he heard footsteps, he knew that they belonged to a slender, female humanoid, and that she would pass his door in approximately 30 seconds. The echoes reverberated a little bit which meant that outside had to be a huge room as plain as his, mostly made of metal and cement. The steps slowed a little bit and came to a stop in front of his cell door. He heard a key being put into a lock, and a small click-sound was emitted. 

All in all, there were three different locks opened. They must really have wanted him to stay if they had so much security on that single door, and considering that he couldn't reach his Ki it was a room with no escape. The door swung soundlessly open which meant this cell was either used quite often or kept well-intact. Probably both as he had been able to smell the faint fear and pain of a human male the first time he had awoken, which had only served to make his fear raise so far and made him wonder about what awaited him outside this door. And now, that mystery was going to be solved.

The light flooding in from outside blinded him temporarily and made it impossible for him to see any features of the silhouette standing in the doorframe. The only thing he was quite sure about was that the person was a slender human female with a gorgeous figure, accentuated by very tight clothing. From her wrist, there hung some kind of rod, dangling on a short chain.

"Stand up!" rang a short bellow from the wall. 

Reluctantly, he complied. He felt being eyed as if he was some kind of meat, and he didn't like it at all. This could not be a friendly place.

She was mumbling under her breath in such a low voice that he could only understand bits and pieces.

"... young ... fail ... don't know why she even bothers ... too hard ... break ... waste ..."

Just when he felt he couldn't stand her piercing stare any longer, she snapped:

"Move!"

and when he didn't react fast enough for her taste, she grabbed him by his arm and forcefully shoved him out of the room.

She had a very strong grip and it hurt, but he decided not to show any sign of it and comply with her orders. There wasn't much he could do anyway. 

His assumptions had been correct. He was standing in a long, empty hallway that looked exactly like he imagined a prison corridor. Everything was made from grey cement, heavily locked doors were placed in regular intervals, and a stale air of brutality and fear surrounded them. He shuddered which caused his company to tighten her grip even more.

She dragged him through a maze of cement hallways and steel doors, apparently knowing exactly where to go. Her pace was very quick, so he had to jog next to her if he didn't want to be carried along by the slender women in very tight, red leather clothing. 

His fear still throbbed in him like a sore thumb, but he had gotten his control back and decided to close it away deep inside him. He would not show his fear to anyone, at least they could never be more horrible than Cell.

Suddenly, they came to a halt in front of another iron door. The woman opened it without any keys, she just turned the door knob and shoved him brutally inside an empty room which probably looked just like cell, only a little bit bigger. It had a window though which dyed the grey room into a dull twilight, making it seem even more dreary. 

He stumbled from the force of the shove and tried to regain his balance when he felt an iron hand grab his hair and hold him up.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" chuckled another female voice, sounding much deeper than the first one, almost purring.

He could not see her because she held his hair so close that he had no possibility to turn around. She must have stood directly behind the door so that he hadn't been able to see her. Gathering his courage, he made his voice sound even and fearless, ignoring the pain that spread from his scalp.

"Where am I and what do you want?"

He heard that sinister laugh again. Apparently the wrong way to get any information.

"Wouldn't you like to know, little one..."

Suddenly, a searing pain shot through his lower back, almost as if he had been hit with a hard punch, but it was a little different. For one, it spread from a small point, and secondly, it was a constant assault to his nerves. His knees went weak with the force of his pain, and he was soon hanging from his thick, black hair. The burning sensation on his head was nothing in comparison to the fire wreaking havoc in his back and his legs; it even helped him deal with the assault. Very early in his training to become a warrior, he had found out that concentrating on minor pains helped him forget major ones.

He swore to himself that he would never let her see how much she hurt him, but when the spot began to travel up his spine, he couldn't help himself and started moaning from pain despite his promise. All his muscles cramped up and he couldn't breathe any more as the hurt wrapped around him like a blanket.

Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. The pain was gone from one second to the other.

Shakily, he drew in a breath and collapsed when the hand holding him up released its hold. It was as if the pain had drained all of his strength and left nothing behind but an empty shell.

He had to realize that this was far different from getting hurt in a battle. There, he had his adrenaline to take away at least the peak of his pain, and an opponent to focus on to, whereas this was pure torture.

But he didn't even know why he was tortured.

Another wave of pain hit.

That was his worst problem His suffering had no reason, or at least none he could see. Before, it had been to learn fighting properly, or to prepare for the saiyans, or to save the world. Now it was a pointless agony that lasted forever.

He could already feel his pride getting weaker by the second, and by the time the third and fourth wave of pain shot through his body, he had no idea how to survive this intact. He began to admire Vegeta, he must have been in a similar situation under the rule of Friezer, and he had managed to come out of it surprisingly whole. Of course, that had to be the reason for Vegeta's stuck-up and pride-full demeanor, it must have been the lifeline for his sanity. But did he really want to become like Vegeta?

Then she must have found his tail spot while he was still musing over Vegeta's past, because a searing hot lance was rammed through his body. He arched backwards, eyes wide open, mouth contorted in a silent scream, finding himself drowned in a red, hot sea of flames.

Luckily he lost consciousness as his brain was overloaded from the sensory input and he fell into a huge black whirlpool of restless nightmares.

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The female figure in that room snorted. She kicked him in his ribs. No reaction. So he was out cold. Tough guy. Better than she had anticipated. At least she had found his soft spot.

She smirked malevolently. She would teach him pains he had never even dreamed about. 

Looking down at the limb figure, she fetched an iron bucket full of cold water, dumping it over him. He groaned and twitched, soon fully aware of his surroundings once again.

It was time to teach him all the ways of using the Agiel. Oh yeah, the day had just started...

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His torturer was a tall woman with blond hair, braided into a long rope that went halfway down her back. She wore the same tight red leather as the woman that had brought him here, and he noticed a silver half moon emblazoned between her breasts. It had to be some kind of uniform for whatever profession she practiced because it just didn't seem like casual wear to him. Thinking about it, the red was such a dark and intense shade that it wouldn't look any different if she was covered in blood...

"Stand up!"

Her previously purring and silky voice was now as sharp as steel. Not taking his gaze from her, he complied wordlessly. When he moved to get up, he felt that his clothing was cold and wet clothing and clung to his body in several spots, making him shiver from the cold. She must have dumped some water over him to get him awake, and she surely didn't bother to heat it before drenching him. 

He lifted his head and looked up into her eyes. They were a startling blue, a blue as deep as an ocean, but she exerted a cold, emotionless glare, a glare that rose the hair on his back. It reminded him too much of Ju-hachi-guu's merciless eyes while she was still under Dr. Gero's command and evil.

He was so deep in thought about her similarities to #18 that he didn't catch the quick flick of her wrist, but the pain in his hand soon tore him out of his little world. He winced as the sharp steely voice got a grinding, low tone that reminded him slightly of Piccolo's gruff voice.

"Now, I don't think we have been properly introduced. I know what you are, so don't even bother with explaining."

The pain in his wrist intensified, and her eyes darkened and got an evil glint to them.

"You may call me Mistress Denna. And," she continued menacingly, "don't even think about running away. I would always find your worthless hide again, and without your powers you are nothing."

This was a shock for him. So she was the reason for the loss of his abilities. Involuntarily, he tried to raise his Ki out of a reflex reaction. Her glittering blue eyes suddenly flashed white as she grinned dangerously and a blinding pain shot through his entire body. He gasped for air and fell forward, his arms barely supporting the weight of his upper body.

She looked down on him and smiled maliciously. 

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. If I were you, I would not do that again as long as you don't want that pain."

He writhed on the floor in agony as his arms gave out beneath the searing lightening that ran through his nerves up into the furthest corners of his brain. Desperately trying to hold on to rational thought despite the onslaught of pain, he hoarsely croaked:

"Please ... make ... it stop ..."

"Nah, nah, already forgotten my name?"

In the depths of his soul, a tiny seed of hatred for the obnoxious woman started to grow as it was nurtured by his rising anger. It was an utterly destructive hatred, just as bad as his hatred for Cell. And if it got big enough, it would take control over him and everybody would have to suffer the consequences – his Dad was the best example. Gritting his teeth, he spat out:

"Please ... make it stop, Mistress Denna!"

She kept on smiling and didn't do anything, making his rage grow further.

"My, my, aren't you a fast learner ... but this, you will have stop yourself. Relax your Ki and the pain will go away."

It was one of the hardest tasks he had ever done, to control his Ki with all the anger at her and all the pain coursing in his veins. Just when he thought that he was getting better, he was distracted again and the pain blazed freshly through his raw nerves. He was well aware of her amused grin at his futile attempts, and his rage grew until his entire vision was shrouded behind a bloody red veil, blocking out even the hurting of his body. 

The seed of hatred grew, it got bigger and stronger, until he couldn't help but notice it through his rage. Suddenly, his anger was gone and he was filled with concern. If he let the seed grow unhindered, it would develop a mind of ist own, and it would start influencing his decisions and cloud his mind. This he couldn't allow, it was bad enough that it had happened in the fight against Cell, and then, only his father's sacrifice had brought him back to reason. He didn't even want to think about what would have happened if he hadn't been brought out of the haze covering his rational thoughts. It would have been very bad for earth, that was sure, perhaps he would even have destroyed it.

Determination filled him. That would not happen, he would make sure of it. With this newly found strength, he gathered his thoughts once again over the pain and concentrated hard on powering down. At firs, it didn't seem to have any effect, but he gradually managed it and was rewarded by the agony ebbing slowly away. Panting, he lay sprawled out on his back as the pain subsided, tiny beads of sweat covering his forehead from the mental fight in his head.

He groaned as a hard boot connected with his ribs, almost breaking them. That would leave some nasty bruise, but he had had worse from his training with Piccolo. Her voice was steely again and cut through the air.

"Did I tell you that you could rest? Now stand up again, I want to get on with your first lesson!"

He was quite confused at her announcement. What kind of twisted lesson was she talking about? 

While he shakily got to his feet, an inner feeling told him that it couldn't possibly be a good kind. After several futile attempts, he finally managed to balance on his wobbly legs, spreading out his arms for better balance. Seemingly contempt with his insecure stance, she continued.

"Now, this", she pointed to the short rod dangling on her wrist from a tight chain, "is an Agiel. As you have already experienced, it can cause you a great deal of pain."

Roughly, she snatched his right wrist and held it tightly in an iron grip that would have made Vegeta proud.

"The Agiel is a very interesting device. Let me show you how it can be used."

Slowly, she stroked with its tip over his forearm while grinning madly. In its wake creeped a deep pain as if his flesh was scorched by an invisible heat source and then frozen to absolute zero, but amazingly his forearm bore no mark from the flames. If he didn't see it with his own eyes, he wouldn't believe it that he was still unscathed.

Concentrating hard, he managed to suppress all initial reflexes like snatching his hand away. Instead, he tried to relax as much as possible and keep his breathing steady, for he was quite sure this was only the beginning and he had to keep his strength for later on. After all, this was supposed to be only the first lesson of God knows how many.

Just before she touched her own hand that was wrapped around his wrist, she lifted the Agiel from his skin, only to start at his elbow again. This time, she intensified the pressure with each passing centimeter. When it had first seemed like fire to him, it now felt as if his flesh was torn away from the bone by huge, sharp claws. And this time, the rod left a mark on his forearm. First it was just a welt, but it soon became a deep, blood-filled gash the harder she pressed.

Waves of sickening heat shot through his body and centered in his stomach, giving him a horribly nauseous feeling. His hand trembled slightly with the agony, and cold beads of sweat started to form over his brows while his breathing grew heavier, making a strange, howling sound in his throat, just like the wind when it had found an empty building. But still, he was able to resist the urge to draw away, biting hard on his lower lip to distract himself.

When she lifted the Agiel away from his wrist, a deep red gash remained. Smiling, she moved his injured wrist to her mouth and licked the blood away. It felt surprisingly good, that is, until she bit down with all her force into his sore wound, drawing more blood. The shock made him flinch, and a low groan was emitted from his throat. If she had not held his wrist, his unwilling action would have caused her to rip a mouthful of flesh out of his arm, but this way it only intensified his bleeding.

An endless time later, she withdrew her teeth from the gash, licking the last remains of his blood from her lips.

"You taste good ... Too bad you're still so young..." she contemplated, never letting his hand slip from her iron grip.

He was now struggling hard to keep himself in check, his forearm felt as if it was constantly being roasted over an open fire, and the biting had definitely made it worse. His breath came in ragged gasps, just adding to the sick feeling in his stomach, and every few seconds, slight tremors rushed through his body. 

Why did that woman do this to him? She probably had as little reason as Cell had for destroying earth. The seed of hatred began to grow again, making it easier for him to regain his posture, giving him some distraction besides the pain that spread from his lower lip which he had unconsciously bit open.

She must have waited for a time when he was distracted as she slammed the Agiel down on his tortured forearm full force, and she was rewarded by a sickening crunch. He howled out in unbearable agony and tried to raise his Ki in a reflex motion to protect himself, but when he remembered that this would only hurt himself, it was too late and the additional pain shot into his nerves. Nevertheless, he tried even harder to make his Ki respond, embracing the pain that made his broken arm seem tame in comparison, only letting a small moan pass his lips as he wound on the floor.

----------

She looked down on his small, writhing frame. He was really strong, mentally and physically, and obviously used to great amounts of pain. That would make her task much more difficult – and much more satisfying, as she was pleased to meet the challenge the boy posed. 

Silently she hoped he would turn out like Richard with the sword, the only one that had actually been able to withstand her training and still keep his soul intact, but that was probably just a dream... Only time would tell. So far, she had broken everyone HE had sent to her. Why should it be different this time?

Not letting any of her thoughts slip through the icy cold mask she wore all the time, she sneered:

"Oh, I forgot to mention that to you: This self-inflicted pain won't let you pass out, so there is no reason for punishing yourself ..."

At first, he didn't seem to have heard her, or he had chosen to ignore her, but a few minutes later his spasms slowly subsided and his tightened-up body relaxed somewhat. 

Without her having to tell him, he slowly got up, careful not to use his broken arm. He panted heavily and his whole body was drenched in sweat, his black eyes narrowed to small slits, and his lips pressed together so hard that they turned white. Yeah, he was really strong, because otherwise he looked just fine.

----------

But on the inside, he trembled like a dry leaf in a cold autumn breeze, shaking with his newly reawakened fear, sucked dry from his remaining strength. His confusion over what that female did to him, and more importantly why, was just as big as in the beginning, although he suspected that she liked hurting people, that she liked seeing people in agony, that she had an overgrown sadistic streak. He could smell the satisfaction that oozed out of her pores while licking his blood and injuring him.

Just like Cell.

His anger flared again, but only briefly so as not to let his Ki respond. He had learned this lesson. Raising his head in defiance and looking suddenly up into her eyes, he was shocked beyond belief. 

For the briefest fraction of a moment, his keen Saiyan sight could detect something behind that icy barrier of impenetrable blue coldness, that made him reconsider his assessment of her. Although it had been a very, very brief time-span, he was able to identify the emotions that had played in her face, betraying most of her previous demeanor. There had been a lot of pain in those beautiful eyes, a pain from old wounds that had never healed properly, and in the background, there was some strange feeling. Cold it have been hope that he had just glimpsed?

A wave of hot pain shot through his neck, a pain that forced him down on his knees and made him cough up some blood.

"I do not like being stared at, so you better watch where you're looking, you have no idea of what I am capable of ..."

Oh, he could imagine very well what she could do, he had seen his fair share of sickening people, like Freezer for example. But that short glimpse of her real being that he had just gotten told him she was somehow different. And it was his full intention of finding out what had caused her to become that merciless torturer he was confronted with.

A new attack on his ill-treated nerves spread from his broken arm when she carelessly gripped it to drag him up.

But no one had said that it would be easy...

A/N: 

So, how do you like my story so far? I would be really glad if I got at least SOME feed-back, so don't be shy and write a review!


	3. Five Days

Disclaimer: look for it in the 1st chapter, I am too lazy to write one 

Five Days

Five days had passed. Five days of living hell on earth. Five days filled with endless torture and endless pain. Five days of trying to survive with a broken, bloodied, and starved body. No, he had not gotten any food during this continuous nightmare, nor any sleep. He felt that his limit was nearly full, his tortured body would not hold much longer beneath the mal-treatment it received every single hour.

Five days of constant agony. He had grown quite adept at dealing with extreme pain, but just when he thought he had mastered it, she came up with a new way of hurting him. In the category of imaginative torture she was clearly unbeatable. Yesterday, or at least he thought that it had been yesterday, she had found some handcuffs. She had bound his wrists tightly with them and then had hooked the short iron chain that connected the two cuffs to the ceiling, making him dangle like a sack of potatoes under her gifted use of the Agiel. The steel handcuffs had slowly eaten themselves through his skin, chafing his wrists raw while he had been hanging by his arms swinging back and forth. Every time he was moving now, the dried blood crust tore open again and red, hot liquid spilled forth beneath the iron clasps. 

As his broken arm always had to carry at least half of his weight, it had never gotten the chance to heal, and by being moved every few seconds, the bone ends ground together, making the injury worse. He was quite positive that his arm was not the only broken bone in his body, but it was clearly the most serious one. His breathing was shallow because of a few broken or cracked ribs that spiked every gulp for air with a sharp pain, and his left hip must have been fractured by a vicious blow with her boot. It was quite a miracle that he had not received any internal or life-threatening wounds, but he supposed that that was part of her gift. She somehow seemed to know exactly how much he could take, stopping whenever necessary to let him recover a little bit.

Five days alone with her, the woman in the tight red leather suit. During that time, he had learned to read her emotions, to tell her general mood by the way she used her Agiel on him. 

Sometimes, when he was in especially bad condition, hanging on his life by a thin thread, she just lightly stroked him with the rod, and in her twisted way of expressing feelings, it was a rare show of compassion.

Other times, when she was in a happy, playful mood, she made it a game for her to surprise him constantly with short stabs of different strength in places he expected the least. If he flinched, she giggled like a schoolgirl that got the expected reaction from her smaller brother when she had eaten his candy.

When she was hungry for some male companion and slightly aroused, she didn't use the Agiel that often but tended to work more with her body. She would slap him with armored gloves, bite into his gashes and suck his blood to satisfy her insatiable thirst. During those times, he could almost understand her unique personality. While she was drinking his thick, warm, coppery life-blood, he felt a strange kind of connection building at the edges of his mind which made him feel warm and protected despite the radiating pain.

But there were also the times when she was angry and full of hatred. Then she would let the Agiel dance over his weakened body to a cruel pace and mercilessly hit his softest spots. Sometimes, when she was in an especially bad mood, she would also turn on the pain that he felt when raising his Ki and add it to his misery, letting him suffer for countless hours. Afterwards, he would be glad when she used the Agiel again as the pain the rod caused was concentrated in one spot whereas the Ki-pain was everywhere at the same instant. And the sting of pointed stabs would ebb away contrary to the Ki-pain that would last forever, tearing at his remaining grip on sanity with its endless assault of his inflamed nerves.

Several times, he had been just inches away from giving up and breaking, somewhere deep down in the tormented borderland between life and death, and he had prayed that death would take him to escape his misery. But every time, she had been able to call him back, reminding him of his duty to protect earth, although that was not exactly what kept him alive. He would never dare to tell her, but it was the image of those deep blue, haunted eyes that had been filled with a pain that made everything he had suffered so far seem pale in comparison.

He had no clue of the cause of her pain, but it was an old, scarred wound, begging him to heal it, begging him to exterminate its source. Once, after a near-death experience, he had asked her about that pain, but that had made her so angry that she had sent him straight back to that barren wasteland on death's doorstep. 

Then, at that moment, he had known that he had to help her, no matter what it would cost him, not wanting her to suffer any more. He had seen that desperate need to keep up a tough facade before, and he felt guilty for asking because she reminded him too much of his mother. 

He would never be able right the crime he had committed against his mother, he could never make killing his father undone, he could never heal the wound which his dad's absence had torn into her heart. She covered it up so well, she seemed like the happiest person on earth during day for his sake and for the sake of Goten; but at night, when she thought nobody would hear her, she would break down in her bedroom, sobbing and crying until well past midnight. He knew that this was his fault, he deserved all the pain Mistress Denna inflicted on him. She just did what his mother should have done.

But perhaps, if he could ease Mistress Denna's pain, he could ease at least some of his guilt about killing his Dad. He was well aware of the fact that he was completely selfish, destroying a housewife's life and then begging for redemption. He knew he should be damned in hell for it.

That was why he had been struggling to stay sane during those five endless days. This was the punishment he deserved, the punishment for killing his father, the punishment for such traitorous thoughts: living hell on earth. He did not allow himself to hate Mistress Denna for hurting him, it was not her fault that he had been so careless, instead he started hating himself for being so inconsiderate and unable to control his powers. He deserved all of that pain, but Mistress Denna surely did not deserve that haunted and tormented look that had screamed out to him in that one instance, and so he swore to himself that he would do everything in his might to heal her suffering. Everything.

----------

The boy was really strange. She had never met a human being as strange as him. By now, she should have broken him about five times over, but that was not the case. She couldn't remember anyone giving her a work-out like him. She had inflicted more pain on him than on any other victim before, including Richard with the Sword, she had held him at the brink of death for many hours, being only millimeters away from killing him several times, and he had not broken.

The most peculiar thing though was that he did not seem to hate her. Sure, the first time she had met him and given him his first lesson, he had looked at her with venom, but the longer she had been playing and working on him, the less his hatred got. By now, she had the unsettling feeling that he was actually looking forward to the pain she would inflict on him in regular torture sessions. He seemed to like being hurt very much, maybe out of a hidden masochistic streak of his very complex personality, but this made everything she had thrown at him useless. She had to find another way to get past his mental defenses against pain, because she surely did not want to report to HIM that she had failed her task. 

Most information about her victims, she got from the look in their eyes when she held their gaze after bringing them back from death's doorstep. Many pupils were extremely dilated, swallowing the irises to remain a dull black that was filled solely with pain and terror, afraid of what she would do next to them. But his eyes were not at all the eyes of a small, frightened boy, but rather of a very compassionate being wise beyond his age. And instead of revealing his soft spots, their focused blackness drilled through her carefully perfected facade as if it was made out of thin paper, down to the core of her soul, seeing every one of her dark secrets.

To tell the truth, she was almost scared of those sparkling black eyes that penetrated her exterior so easily; and when he had asked her about her pain, she had lost her nerves for the first time in many years and had almost killed him. That also scared her, his ability to make her loose her calm.

Slowly, she got up from the plain, king-sized bed that filled almost the entire room. The only other piece of furniture was a simple black dresser which matched the ebony color of the bed with an even darker shade of wood, and gave the room a mysterious feeling. 

She stretched her cramped up muscles which hadn't relaxed since she had started working on the boy, and began braiding her long, thick hair. It was the same hair that Richard with the sword had admired so much that he had used it as a focus to suppress his anger. She smiled, her first sincere smile in a long time. He was the first one to show her what love really was, and so she had kept her hair in remembrance of him. It had just grown a little bit longer, touching the small of her back. 

Working quickly, she donned her red Mord-Sith-outfit and went to see the unusual boy who was hanging in the adjoining room.

Opening a small, carved wooden door which separated her room from the training room, she was greeted by the sight of her current trainee. His previously spiky hair had been flattened to his head by the blood she had spilled, and his head hung low as he was no longer strong enough to hold it up. Almost every square inch of his toned skin was covered in cuts and bruises, his well-defined muscles were clearly visible through the practically non-existing clothing, and although he was bloody, sweaty, starved and weakened, he still posed a gorgeous sight which aroused her tremendously. Had he not been so young, she would have taken him to bed several times over the previous nights which she had spent cold and lonely. But maybe that was the key to his breaking. She would have to try that out later on. 

He must have heard her move the door or sensed her otherwise; in any case he was too weak to actually say anything, but he opened his eyes and looked at her calmly, holding her gaze with those ageless black eyes devoid of any hatred. 

Deciding that he had been hanging long enough, she took the chain from the rusty hook on the high ceiling. With a cat-like hiss of pain, he collapsed to the ground, being too weak to catch his fall of a few inches. As he laid on the floor, she could almost feel something akin to pity for the boy, he rather looked like a load of boneless jelly than a human being. Now, it was time for him to heal a little bit, otherwise he could be crippled for life, and HE would not like that at all. In fact, HIS specific orders had been to not cause any permanent damage, and the boy would need his strength for the 'exercise' she had planned out for that evening. That evening, she would not be lonely and cold any more.

Carefully, she took off his handcuffs, licking away the sweet, warm blood which was her way of apologizing. He reacted promptly to it as he relaxed and almost ... purred. He had done that before when she had been sucking his blood which meant that he actually enjoyed it, no matter how much pain he was in. Never before, she had heard such a sound coming from a human throat, but she made herself remember that he was only half human. His Saiyan half was a mystery to her, and that must have been the reason for his ability to resist all of her training completely.

Never letting go of his raw, tasty wrist, she turned him on his back and untangled his limbs which was quite an easy task in his relaxed state. When she got done, she saw that he was curiously watching her, his watchful eyes following her slow movements without any trace of open or hidden fear on his chiseled features.

Seeing his broken arm, she sighed. It was in really bad shape, the bone-shards seemed to have caused a lot of damage as it was swollen to almost double its normal size and colored an angry purple and blue. She would have to cut it open to remove all splints sticking into his flesh.

"I will have to operate on your arm to set the broken bone. Do you think you can hold still on your own or should I tie you to my bed? This is part of your training, so I won't let you fall unconscious."

He seemed to ponder a while over that thought as his eyes defocused a little bit. Then, suddenly, he whispered in a hoarse voice, rusty from previous screaming:

"Will your Agiel hurt me when you are not touching it?"

She raised a graceful eyebrow and nodded. Seeing what he was getting at, she let him talk.

"Would you ... borrow ... me your Agiel as a ... distraction ... , Mistress Denna?"

That was indeed an interesting question, she didn't think he would have the guts to ask her.

"How do I know that you will give it back to me and not try to escape?"

He seemed to have waited for a question like that as he answered immediately with a determined expression in his lively eyes.

"First, I don't think I could do anything in my current condition ... Secondly, you can always turn on that strange Ki-pain, and ... thirdly, ... I don't know what it means to you, but ... you have my word ..."

His voice trailed off as he stared deeply into her cold eyes, watching for any sign of having displeased her. She was too preoccupied with returning his stare to take any offence at his statement, and she could see his seriousness about the matter, that he was strictly honor-bound. There was no deception in those coal black, glittering eyes, but ... something else ... something she had not seen for a long time ... some kind of ... fearless trust? 

Now, how the hell did she get the idea that he trusted her? That was completely irrational.

Shaking her head clear from that ridiculous thought, she opened the short silver chain around her right wrist and handed the Agiel slowly over to the boy. When he shut his good hand over the rod, she easily recognized the signs of pain, like the dilating pupils, the slight sweating, and the short, trembling breaths, but soon, he relaxed his entire frame and closed the lids over his grateful eyes, erasing all signs which would indicate that he was hurting.

"OK, I want you to listen to me, there might be a chance that you need to do something like that later on. First I'm gonna clean the dagger and your arm so that it won't get infected that badly."

He opened his ageless eyes again and released the Agiel, letting it drop on the floor. She furrowed her eyebrows in a frown. He had treated her precious Agiel like a simple piece of wood which could be thrown away carelessly; that had earned him an additional hour tonight before she would invite him into her bed. 

Moving his hand towards her dagger and completely oblivious to her anger, he whispered:

"I can disinfect wounds much better than water. Let me show you."

With those words, he grabbed her hand and concentrated. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead and he panted, while she was much too surprised to remove her frozen hand. A strange tingling feeling enveloped her wrist where he touched her, and when he let loose a hoarse scream, she could feel some kind of warm power run down her fingers and into her blade. Shortly, the knife glowed in a dark blood-red as if it had been heated in a forge, then it turned back to its usual steely grey appearance.

He was panting much stronger than before, his chest heaving, and his whole body was drenched in sweat, trying to get over the pain.

She just sat there and stared at the strange boy dumbfounded. Had he just managed to access his Ki and channel it into the knife despite the magic she had woven to separate him from his life-force? But that should be impossible, the pain should have been much too great, it should have paralyzed him completely. Perhaps she had made a mistake when initiating the magic contact. Another explanation would be that you couldn't shut all the life-force away as the being would die from lack of energy. Or maybe it was due to his alien heritage. She shuddered when imagining HIS reaction. HE would surely not look down kindly on that fatal development, she had to find a way to break the boy quickly so that HE wouldn't be enraged.

In the meantime, he had calmed down a little bit, and moved his hand to his broken arm. Doing the same as with her dagger, he released a tiny flow of his Ki. Though this time, he was apparently not as careful as with her, because all the hair on his forearm was burned away and his skin was slightly singed. She shook her head. How he had been able to access his Ki was still a mystery to her, but a mystery she would solve as soon as possible after tending to his injury. Readying her knife, she frowned and admonished him:

"That was not very wise. If I were you, I would go for the Agiel, because I'm going to start now."

He just smiled knowingly and reached for the magical rod. Gritting his teeth, he prepared for the pain that would follow.

Cutting deeply into his forearm, she started the surgery, and was rewarded with a throaty moan emerging from his chest, but he did not move an inch. When she had cleaned away all of the pus, blood, rotting flesh and could actually see the fracture of the bone, she was surprised how much it had already healed. The only problem was that it had not healed the right way. Some of the bone splinters had gotten in between the split ends, and so the previously white bone had ended up in a dark, deformed knot. Sighing, she knew what she had to do.

"I will need the Agiel back because I have to break your arm again so that it can heal properly."

He looked through her with glazed-over eyes which radiated immense pain, but he had still heard her voice. Slowly, he released the Agiel, and she saw how hard he must have gripped it as his palm was one big, bloody mess. Without thinking, she grabbed the Agiel with one hand and his good wrist with the other one, leading his oozing wound to her mouth, licking away his sweet, coppery blood. His reaction was immediate as he relaxed and smiled, calming down considerably, and his black eyes even got their sparkle back. When she thought the time was right, she jammed the Agiel directly on the knot in the bone, breaking it anew, but never letting go of the sweet taste of his palm when he convulsed beneath her in a reaction to the pain.

After she had cleansed out all of the bone shards with one hand, she pressed the two ends together the right way while sucking more of his blood. He whimpered slightly, but it was mixed with that strange purring rumble that originated from somewhere deep in his chest.

Stitching the firm muscles together, she kept on tasting his warm flesh in her mouth, and it cost her some of her concentration because he tasted so male, so good, partly like a human, but there was a thicker, a sweeter tinge to it than human blood. Finally, she bandaged his arm with white, stiff linen, adding two splinters of wood to keep it immobile so that he wouldn't injure himself any further. Considering his fast healing rate, he would only have to wear the make-shift cast for one or two days.

When she was done, she never let go of the hand, but looked down into his curious eyes. They had lost all of their pain, and were filled with the trust she thought she had just imagined earlier, but there was something more, something utterly alien to her, something she was not able to recognize.

Starring into that black deepness, she failed to register that he had cleared his palm away from her hungry mouth and brought her own hand to his lips. His intense gaze held her firmly in one place, and she did not move a muscle, just like a frightened rabbit hypnotized by a rattle snake.

She saw what he was doing, but her brain failed to process the information, and so she was completely taken by surprise when he bit into her palm, sucking her blood like she had earlier done to him. It seemed to mean a lot more than the simple physical act of drawing blood though, because she felt some kind of presence in the back of her head, but she shrugged it off. He then seemed to act on pure instinct alone when he clasped her injured hand with his, their fingers interlacing, their wounds pressed tightly on each other's. His voice was surprisingly strong and deep, not sounding like the small boy laying on the ground in front of her, and his black, hazed eyes looked through her to a distant point far away.

"From now until eternity we shall be bonded by the Sharing. Let us share everything we have, be it happiness or pain." 

After the last words had poured over his lips, she felt a searing wave of his Ki shoot through his warm palm into hers, and up her arm, until it mixed and mingled with her body, her life-force, leaving her a dizzy feeling. 

Suddenly, a lot of knowledge about the hybrid flooded into her mind through a door that had been forcefully shoved open. She smiled malevolently, breaking out of the trance she had been put in by that strange kind of rite, and she was once again in full control of the situation, ready to exercise her profession as Mord-Sith. 

Nothing better could have happened. Either the boy was really stupid or he couldn't control his instincts; in any case, he had done her a huge favor. Now she knew the way his brain worked, and now she could start the REAL training. She knew where she had gone wrong with her magic, and she would never make that mistake again. HE would be very pleased, and the boy would break like everybody else. 

Smirking, she gracefully got up and sauntered towards the white mattress and the white pillow on the black bed-frame, leaving the boy unconscious on the cold floor. Earlier that day, she had thought she would have to bring his gorgeous body with her to teach him the ways a man and a woman could interact, but this method was much better and more prone to succeed. She was grateful for that huge break-through, she had earnestly began to doubt at her abilities as a Mord-Sith. Leisurely, she stripped the tight, red leather of her uniform until all of her naked, silver-white glory was exposed to the cool, fresh air, and she slipped contently under the warm, white covers. Rolling over on her side in her favorite position, she curled up into a comforting ball, concentrating on what she would show him. It was time to dream, yes, she would dream for that boy...

He was caught in a black, seemingly endless void. He went over the last few events, trying to think of a reason for the change of surroundings. What had just happened? His Saiyan instincts had taken over for a short period of time when his mind had been weakened from the pain of the operation, and he had bitten her warm palm, drawing blood. He had pressed his wound onto hers, probably in a symbolic exchange of life-blood, and he had given her some of his Ki. He was sure it was some kind of Saiyan ritual, as the words that had tumbled from his mouth had sounded strange and ancient. 

__

We are bonded by the Sharing.

What did that mean? Bonded? Sharing?

Surely enough, he had felt some kind of connection building between them, and he had felt her access his memory when he had shot his Ki into her arm. He had expected to be permitted into hers as well, but instead, he had landed in that huge universe of blackness where he couldn't do anything, not even move his legs or his arms or blink.

Suddenly, after a long period of bored floating, he heard a warm, female voice crooning to him from far away, gradually coming closer.

"Wake up, Hun. Come on, wake up!"

His eyelids hardly lifted. Or were they lifted? He couldn't decide on which of the two statements were true and he didn't want to. He was so tired, but the insistent, annoying voice would not let him escape into sleep. His eyes slowly focused on a beautiful, oval face with full cheeks and many lines from the harsh weather, framed by wonderfully curly, brown hair that reached down to her shoulders. The face that hovered over him was so familiar. Where had he seen it the last time? But before he could come to any conclusion, his traitorous mouth decided to move on its own.

"Yes, Mom."

His mother had woken him up like every morning. Why hadn't he immediately recognized his mother? But that woman looked unfamiliar at the same time, upsetting him greatly. It was as if two different sets of mind would argue over dominance in his head, giving him dual perspectives on the same things, confusing him to no end. Was she his mother or was she not his mother? He wanted to scream. This had to be the beginning of madness.

Mechanically, he got up, looking through the familiar room, though unfamiliar with its settings at the same time. A small window on the far wall revealed some first golden rays of the morning sun raising over the horizon, dying the sky in various colors ranging from orange over red and purple to one of the most startling blues which mirrored the one of his eyes. The walls were clean and plain white, giving the room an open and serene feeling which was enhanced by the clear shapes of the crude, wooden bed and the beautiful dresser made by his Dad. That seemed quite unbelievable. His dad had made this wonderfully crafted dresser. His dad was a carpenter. He shrugged at the two clashing opinions and pulled out some clothes, a pair of blue socks and a nice little aqua-marine dress printed with tiny yellow flowers. The dress would compliment his eye- and hair-color nicely.

A dress?

Yes, a dress. Hadn't he always worn a dress? That seemed strange. As strange as the thought that he had blue eyes and blond hair. He was a girl, wasn't he?

By now, he was really confused about his two arguing opinions on everything. Was he a girl that had always been wearing dresses or was ... he ... ... a ... ... ...

His thoughts were suddenly halted as the mind that had identified his dad as the maker of his wooden dresser had one the fight and had forced the other one to retreat. Enormously grateful that this head-splitting argument was over, he let that mind take unconditional control, erasing all controversial thoughts.

" You – are – Denna – You – live – here – You – are – a – girl" 

This sentence was repeated over and over again, embedding itself deeply in the young brain, making it forget that there had been anything else.

__

Yes. That is my name. I am Denna. How could I ever have doubted that fact?

Denna shook her small head vigorously. She laughed, her voice ringing like thousands and thousands of little silver bells. Today, she had really strange thoughts. When waking up, she had almost been convinced that she was a boy who had had to save the world countless times. She laughed some more. How funny.

Skipping a few steps, she danced down the creaking stairs to begin a new day.

A/N: So how do you like this twist? Any ideas how I could improve the story? **Lol**, I am so desperate for feedback that I would even accept f l a m e s ... PLZ review!!!


	4. VegetaSei

A/N: Thank you very much for all the reviews! 

To ivy: Sorry for the confusing end last chapter, but it gets even more confusing in this chapter. Please be patient with me, I have to introduce all strings first before I can weave a plot out of them (Don't worry, there IS a continuous plot, but it wouldn't be any fun if I told you now how the parts are related)! 

To Kota Dawn: Yes, I love Denna (and all the other Mord-Siths), but –what a shame- she won't be in this chapter. This story is probably going to be some kind of Crossover in the later chapters, but I am not sure yet which characters I'll introduce. 

To stupid kid 04 and blah: Gohan torture is the best!!!!!

By the way: I have said that this story is about 2 years after the Cell games. In the manga, Gohan participates in the Cell games at the age of 9, so he should be close to 12 by now. Enjoy it!

Disclaimer: None, the DBZ characters belong to Akira Toriyama, the other characters to their according owners.

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Vegeta-Sei

Just keep walking. Put one foot in front of the other. It isn't far anymore, you are almost there. And keep walking. Left foot, right foot, breathe. 

With those stupid phrases, I am trying to cheer me up, trying to keep myself going, trying to stay sane in that endless, red, empty desert that is bursting from heat. I know that if I would stop to rest for a while, I would never get up again, so I have to keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Left foot, right foot, breathe. Look on the ground before you put your foot down, you can't afford getting hurt. That would be your end. Left foot, right foot, breathe.

Blood red sand as far as I can see, the air wavering madly, the pale blue sun burning down mercilessly on my shoulders, dunes rippled by the hot breath from hell's doorstep. You are almost there. Keep going and going and going.

Going where? I don't know. Left foot, right foot, breathe.

I can smell nothing else than heated stone and my own sweat that leaves white, salty marks on my forehead. Thirsty, so thirsty. Don't even think about cold, fresh, soothing water running down your dry, aching throat and giving you new energy. Just keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Left foot, right foot.

Breathing is an endless torture, the hot gusts of air sear my lungs and make my eyes water. I cannot afford to loose any more liquid. Soon my body will be dried out and shriveled like a mummy, lying beneath hot layers of blood red sand. Keep going. Keep going. It isn't far anymore.

The cloudless sky is an unfamiliar glassy purple that matches the hostile environment, and the sweltering blue sun is enormous, reaching down to the blazing sand as if it wanted to devour the whole scenery. Living beings are clearly not meant to survive in that cruel oven designed by nature herself. Nevertheless, I am here. I do not know why, but I am here and I leave marks which show that there has been one single boy. Every footstep leaves a mark to show that nature has not defeated me yet. Left foot in front of the right foot. Right foot in front of the left foot. Keep walking, don't stop.

My head is throbbing under the fiery assault of the star which is only slightly dampened by a thin layer of cloth and my thick, spiky, black hair. The heat is pounding down on me, making me slightly dizzy, and I got a strange taste in my paper-dry mouth. My sore eyes are half closed, but even then the bright reflected light still hurts my pupils, it is so hot, searing, seeming to burn me to a crisp. Don't think, just keep going. Put one foot in front of the other. It isn't far anymore. You are almost there. Left foot, right foot, breathe. Keep walking, walking, walking, walking, until you are no more.

Suddenly, the sound of a huge detonation almost busts my eardrums, and burning hot red sand spatters everywhere. I choke on the thick dust cloud and swallow a mouthful of hard stones and dirt. They are scratching down my dry throat in an agonizingly slow pace and leave an aching chest and stomach. I have to cough again, hurting my throat even further. 

Only then I realize that I'm lying flat on my stomach, the heated ground burning through my scarce clothing. Way back, too far to remember it, I have shed my over-shirt, using it as a make-shift turban against the blazing sun, leaving me in a tight, yellow-white muscle shirt and a pair of brownish-green, tattered jogging pants. When I have started walking, my clothes have looked quite new, but now they are torn, dusty, wrinkled, and smelly; the folds are filled with tons of sand and itching in all the wrong places.

Another explosion, this time much closer. The spattering rocks and the sand are shredding my shirt and are scraping my back raw, but I have enough common sense to thrust my aching head into my arms to avoid getting another mouthful of dirt. 

When the red hot dust-cloud settles, I manage to convince my sore muscles to get up again and continue my aimless wandering. Put one foot in front of the other. Right foot in front of the left foot. Left foot in front of the right foot. It isn't far anymore, you are almost there.

You are almost there.

Almost there.

But this is only a kind illusion of my dehydrated brain, just a way to keep me walking. In reality, I have no idea where I am, so I cannot know where I am going. I just know that I cannot possibly keep this up any longer, it is too hot and too dry. My reddened eyes are burning, my dry tongue is swollen and feels like wood in my mouth, and breathing is a constant agony.

Nevertheless, I keep on stumbling despite the repeated explosions. Sometimes they are closer, sometimes they are further away, as if somebody quite powerful was fighting. I can almost feel the tension and I can hear the energy crackle in the burning hot air, and the thought of fighting makes me restless even in my weakened state; my sore body is telling me that I want to participate although my mind does not consciously remember fighting. My senses, heightened by my urge to fight, are telling me a lot, especially my sense of smell; and I discover that I have some kind of sixth sense which gives me some information about their fighting-energy. 

There are two male combatants in their prime, they are closely related, and it is just a good, rough, but friendly spar instead of a full-scale war. Both are sweaty and must have been fighting for quite some time, and although both are still holding back, one is already covered in sweet, metallic blood while the other one, the stronger one, is as good as fresh.

I am trying to keep my senses on the vicious fight as good as I can as I don't want to get hit with whatever kind of energy is causing those detonations, and it seems to me that if I just would concentrate hard enough, I would be able to actually see the two who cause all that ruckus.

A sudden feeling in my guts tells me to look up to the blazing purple sky, and not one moment too soon. Shielding my eyes, I am confronted with a well-toned, black-haired figure plummeting right towards me. The quite heavily built man is falling lifelessly down to the hot, red desert-sand, only a furry, brown tail is fluttering freely behind him in the wind rushing past his muscled body.

So the man has a tail.

I am wondering why I find that fact strange; after all, I have a tail on my own, it is just curled around my waist to keep it out of harm's way.

When I have woken up in this god-forsaken desert, I have almost stepped on my furry appendage, and it has felt really awkward to have one at first. But later on, after a few tiring hours of pointless walking, my body has adjusted to the new feeling, and I have found out that the fuzzy brown extension of my spinal chord helps me keep my balance.

I just wonder why I had to adjust to my tail, it clearly is meant to be there. I found that one out when I accidentally tripped over it while walking, and it hurt like hell. From that point on, I have always had it tightly curled around my waist. Still, why does that tail feel new to me, additional limbs usually do not appear out of thin air, do they?

The tailed man is falling straight towards me, and as he comes closer, I can see the cuts and bruises, the burns and the blood covering his entire body. He is clearly the weaker one of the two. Strangely, I don't even think about moving out of the way, there is just something inside me which tells me that the injured man is not defeated yet, but just waiting for the right time to break his controlled fall.

Curiously, I watch him come closer, not afraid of him. That something inside me also tells me that he could not hurt me even if he tried to. He is wearing some blue full-body spandex, and some kind of white and yellow armor, which is slightly cracked, is covering his upper body. His hair is just as unruly as mine, but none of his slightly shorter spikes fall in front of his eyes. Instead, they point away stiffly from his chiseled face, defying gravity, and reminding me of a hedge-hog. His lively black eyes are open and have a taxing expression, strengthening my speculation that he is just pretending to be weaker than he actually is. He is still in the battle, and his injuries are not too serious, barely deep enough to draw blood. Only the two or three broken ribs could cause him some trouble, but it doesn't look as if they had punctured his lung. The most fascinating thing about him though is his tail. It has a rich, chocolate-brown color, and is waving in the air like a flag signaling 'Here I come'.

My previous assumption has been correct. Only about 12 feet from the ground and a split-second before he impacts on me, the brawny man suddenly darts away at blinding speed, leaving me to face a round, glowing orb that rapidly descends towards me. The sphere feels like pure energy confined in a small space, and it all but screams 'dangerous' at me.

I know that I have no clue of how to deal with something like that, so I let my instincts take control. A strange tingling comes over me, my heart-beat is accelerating, my breathing is quickening, my brain seems as sharp and clear as never before, my formerly tired muscles are bursting from energy, and I know that I am now ready for combat. In my rapidly moving eyes, the orb seems to slow until I can easily trace its illuminated track through the air. It has a 1-foot-diameter and radiates energy and heat, but it does not scare me any more.

I extend an arm and just let it bounce off like a volleyball, and it shoots in the direction the falling man has flown away. 

With my immensely heightened vision, I have no trouble finding the man, he is battling furiously with the other one, a taller man with the same kind of spiky, black hair. The smaller one is so caught up in the fist-to-fist-fight that he not aware of the oncoming energy ball I have redirected, the taller one though has easily spotted my action and tries to maneuver the smaller one to a position where the energy ball would hit him dead on. 

Suddenly, I get a strange feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. I become dizzy, and it feels as if somebody would mess with my body, disrupting all kinds of necessary functions. It is a really uncomfortable feeling, it is starting out as a slight tugging in my muscles, but it is soon getting worse. My whole body seems as if it was on fire, the pain is so strong that I can't breathe any more, and it feels like I was torn from the inside out. 

Just as the pain lessens a bit and I open my eyes, I realize that I am somewhere else. I am floating some twenty feet in the air, face to face with the tall warrior, and we both are locked in fierce hand-to-hand-combat. I am so stunned that I momentarily let down my guard, and the tall one manages to hit me square in the face. I can feel my nose break, and the blood is spraying like a crimson fountain as I plummet towards the rippled desert sand. But before I hit the ground, something very hot and very burning smashes into my shoulder, denting a nice and bloody, fist-sized hole into it. 

The pain is unbearable, and it shrouds my mind in a pulsating red veil. All I can feel is the same pain as before, the pain that set my body on fire and that ripped me apart from the inside. I get lost in my own timeless hell of agony, not aware of anything except my pain.

Then, after an eternity, the pain is ebbing down somewhat and I am able to feel my body again. It gets gradually better, until I am able to lift my heavy eyelids. I am lying on the hot, red desert sand, staring into the glazed, sparkling purple sky adorned by the pale blue sun. The sand is burning, burning through my clothes, burning my raw back, burning away all the momentary strength I have found.

Despite my weakness, I slowly get up again like I have several times today, suppressing the pain that throbs through my right shoulder and my nose. Keep going, keep going, one foot in front of the other. 

What in the world has just happened? 

First, I have been at a safe distance from those two fighters, then some gut-wrenching pain consumes me, then I am suddenly fighting the tall one, then the horrible pain comes again, and then I lie on the ground with a bloody shoulder and a broken nose. Think, think, think. There has to be some logical explanation for it.

Finally, I notice the powerful presence of the two black-haired warriors over my thinking. They are standing in a relaxed stance about a hundred feet away, but I have a feeling that they would be ready to fight in the fraction of a second if I made a wrong move. They are curiously eyeing me, and they are talking softly among themselves. 

I swallow hard with my dry throat, gathering my courage. My voice is hoarse and raspy, but I manage to choke out:

"Who are you?"

Their heads perk up at my question, turning all their attention towards me, but I can read from their puzzled expressions that they are thoroughly confused, especially the smaller one. He shouts something to me in a strange guttural and grumbling language which I cannot understand, and I shrug my shoulders, hopefully signaling that I have no clue what they have just said. What the hell is going on? Where am I, and, more importantly:

WHO AM I? 

----------

Normally, it would be way under Marduku's dignity to spar with that third-class-weakling that called himself his brother, but today he had accepted the challenge, eager to let out some steam by beating down on his younger sibling. They had agreed to spar without scouters and confined their fight within the Crimson Desert, and he was pleasantly surprised how well Toroku fared against him under those extreme weather conditions. Toroku had even done some real damage to him, he was sure that a few of his ribs had at least been cracked. That was when he had stopped holding back and had mercilessly dealt blow after blow.

Soon it was too much for the weaker Toroku, and his previously tight guard became lax and flawed. 

Jumping at the chance, he snuck a powerful drop-kick past his brother's defenses, and his foot connected with his shoulder and sent Toroku plummeting towards the ground. He was well aware of the fact that a simple kick would not take his brother out of the game, so he sent a concentrated Ki-blast after him.

Just before it hit him though, his brother managed to dodge out of harm's way, only to reveal a small boy of 11, maybe 12, directly in the blast's path. The brat was dressed ridiculously, some unidentifyable piece of cloth was covering his thick, black mane; a formerly white muscle shirt was clinging to his upper body; a brownish pair of training pants was tucked into some dusty, black combat boots; and every inch of his tanned skin was covered by a thick layer of sand.

Remarkably, the dirty kid showed no fear of the oncoming blast and swatted it away carelessly as if it was an annoying insect. Marduku was quite impressed, the kid must surely have a considerable amount of Ki to handle the situation so easily.

Turning his attention back to the fight, he looked for Toroku, and a devious smirk spread over his handsome features. The kid had diverted the blast exactly in his brother's direction, and he intended to use it to his advantage. He sped up and appeared right in front of Toroku, engaging him in fierce hand-to-hand-combat.

Suddenly, his brother's sloppy fighting-style changed for a split second, his heavily flawed moves became very exact and precise, and he seemed to perform a technique that was utterly alien to Marduku. He couldn't recognize his brother anymore, all of Toroku's attitude had changed, and his hardened eyes had become different, softer and more innocent. Then, Toroku let down his guard completely with a stunned expression on his face, and Marduku struck him in the face pretty hard so that his brother went flying to the ground yet again. But this time, he had forgotten about his own energy blast, and it hit his brother dead on, making one of his shoulders a bloody mess.

That was when the strangest thing in his life happened, even stranger than Toroku's change of behavior: From one instance to the other, Toroku's broken nose and injured shoulder were as good as new again, no mark left from their vicious battle, even before his unconscious body hit the sand; and a young voice, too young to be his brother's, screamed out in pain. 

Looking around, he saw that it was the strange kid who had yelled, and the kid had a broken nose and a bloody shoulder. He looked back to Toroku. His brother was healed and already getting up again, and the kid had the exact same injuries that Toroku had had before. What the hell is going on?

The kid twitched a little bit, first opening his eyes, then pushing himself up without seeming to notice his deep wounds. Marduku's respect for the kid grew, in a few years, the young fighter would be an extraordinary warrior of the first class or even higher.

He cut the energy flow that was keeping him suspended in the air and landed softly about a hundred feet behind the kid, right by his brother's side. The boy must have heard him, as he turned around. Not removing his contemplative gaze from the strange kid, he whispered to the now uninjured and standing Toroku if he was ok.

"Yeah I am, but what happened? All I can remember is that I blackened out for some time, and then I am on the ground and my injuries are gone. You did not put me in a Regen-Tank, did you?"

Marduku shook his head no in an answer, but was stopped dead when the kid's small voice sounded to them through the maddeningly hot air. The boy spoke in a melodious, soft language that neither of them could understand. Probably some brat that had been sent off as a baby to purge planets and that had just returned from his first mission. He called over to the kid.

"Hey, brat, do you understand our language?"

The kid merely looked at them confused and shrugged his shoulders. 

He cursed. The teaching program of the space-pod must have mal-functioned. They would have to get the brat a language chip before Marduku could get any information on that strange incident out of the kid. Waving his hand in a rough gesture, he signaled the brat to come closer. Wearily, the kid took a few hesitant steps towards the them, wincing slightly from the pain in his shoulder when his arm was moved. The small boy didn't show any fear however, he just seemed very cautious and not very sure of the situation.

Ten feet in front of the men, the brat stopped, close enough to be polite, but far enough to have some measure of safety. Marduku thought this would be as close as the boy would come, so he took slowly to the air, Toroku always by his side. Looking back, he saw that the boy did not follow him but merely stared at them curiously.

Waving his hand again, he told the kid to come closer, waiting for what the brat would do. Considering his rotten luck, the brat probably would have no clue how to fly, let alone keep up with them. Trying to assess the boy's abilities, he watched as the brat got a very concentrated expression and managed to hover a few feet over the ground, but then the kid collapsed and fell down to the heated red sand again, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground. 

This time, it took the brat quite a while to get up, and when he finally stood, his pained face was covered in thick beads of sweat and he was as white as a wall, only his injured arm was red where the blood was constantly trickling down in a steady stream.

The kid looked up to them and shrugged again as if to say sorry. Marduku began to wonder, how long that kid had been out there in the Crimson Desert, because he clearly was too weak to fly, and the big wound on his shoulder must have taken a lot of his remaining strength. The dirty and torn clothes indicated that it must have been a very long time, and the boy's slightly cracked lips revealed how desperately in need of liquid he was. No wonder the brat had no energy left.

Cursing his truly rotten luck, he swept down to the kid and picked him up in a fluent motion. The boy stiffened at first, but then relaxed in his arms and closed his eyes. Ignoring his brother's taunts about getting soft and weak, he studied the brat closer and noticed that his skin was too hot and too dry to be healthy. The boy was panting irregularly, and the kid would have to get cooled down very soon, or he would suffer a bad case of heat stroke. 

Frowning, Marduku sped up until his disappearing figure vanished over the horizon, leaving the blazing red, hot oven heated by the pale blue sun behind.

----------

I feel like I was run over by a semi-truck, my shoulder and my nose hurt like hell, and I am so thirsty and weak that I can barely move. At the moment, I am lying in the arms of the taller guy, and he is carrying me who knows where, but strangely I trust him. My weird sixth sense doesn't perceive any vibes of danger from him, and so I relax completely, closing my eyes. I don't know if I fell asleep, anyways, some time later we loose height very fast judging by the fluttering feeling in my stomach and land softly on the ground. I open my tired eyes again when he puts me on my feet, and I realize that we are in what seems to be a market place.

Countless people with black, spiky hair and furry brown tails like mine are everywhere, talking, shouting, screaming in that unintelligible language of theirs. They squeeze through a maze of stands covered with white canvas, where a huge variety of different goods is being loudly praised by their various owners. They offer strange-looking, purple fruit, yellow, pointy vegetables, red juicy meat, clothes in all different colors and styles, many kinds of dangerous weapons, and a sweet scent of fried fish is penetrating the air, making my hungry stomach rumble loudly.

The tall, slender houses surrounding the busy market place look regal and very expensive; they are covered with white polished marble so that they are glittering and gleaming in the sunlight like pearls, almost reflecting the buzz of activity in front of their facades like a mirror. The wooden doors and window-frames are painted a deep blue, complementing the white-washed walls nicely and adding a southern flair. Everything here is so clean, the people are happy, and the cloudless purple sky is adding to the cheerful atmosphere.

It is a pity that the tall man who has brought me here has to interrupt my view of the place. I would have loved to trace down all the different impressions which overflow my senses, but he motions me to follow him again. My companion seems to know exactly where he is going, and I have some serious trouble keeping up with him in the crowd. Every time somebody bumps against my injured shoulder, a hot flash of pain shoots through my nerves, and I have to concentrate very hard so that I don't loose sight of my tall guide. Finally he stops at one of the beautifully carved blue doors and waits for me to catch up with him.

We both enter without knocking or unlocking the door, and I find myself standing in a long, cool hallway which is semi-dark, many closed blue doors leading to even more rooms. I follow the tall man through a confusing maze of intersecting hallways and openings to a big, plain door that is adorned by a single black triangle with two s-shaped white lines on it.

He enters without knocking yet again and motions for me to follow him. The sight being revealed before me surprises me greatly. The big, stuffed room seems like some kind of very advanced chemistry laboratory or a mad doctor's den; everywhere are tall shelves bursting with beakers, test tubes, tongs, and countless jars with strange contents ranging from green powder to modern micro-chips; there is even some kind of bed in the far corner, but the durable brown leather straps secured on the white bed-frame make me nervous. Why would they have to strap anyone down on that bed?

My companion is leaning against a shelf filled with beakers containing bubbling liquids and he is looking around lazily, but makes no move to do anything. We have been waiting for maybe 10 minutes when a small door previously hidden behind a table and some cupboards opens and another man steps in. This one is wearing a white lab coat and clear rubber gloves, but otherwise he seems as built as a fighter. He lifts a curious eyebrow towards me and then looks at my companion for an answer.

They talk quite a while in that growling language, then the doctor or whatever function he has, takes a small, grey chip out of a jar from the table. He is letting me inspect the chip, then he turns his back to me, lifts his hair, and shows me a similar chip at the base of his head, embedded securely in his skull.

I can see that my companion has the same kind of chip in his neck, and I am able to guess that they want to give me one, too. Slowly, I nod, a little bit weary of what they are going to do. My companion picks me up effortlessly and lays my stiff form face down on the bed. He is spreading my legs and arms and starts strapping me down.

I am getting nervous, panic begins to rise in my throat when I feel busy hands working on my body. They have already immobilized my limbs, and they have just tied my waist to the bed-frame. My whole body is starting to shiver, my hair is standing on edge, and now they want to tie my neck. I am shaking with all-consuming fear; somehow I know that I have been in a similar situation before and that something horrible has happened.

I am straining against my bonds, desperately whispering –no, no, no- into the hard, white mattress over and over again. I hear some low, angry growls and a second pair of strong hands is coming to hold me down, hurting my shoulder, suffocating me. My bucking movements in order to free myself become more frantic despite the pain, and a sickening wave panic threatens to overwhelm me. My confused mind is loosing the fight and my panicked instincts take over, reducing me to the state of a frightened animal.

Suddenly I am free again. I am standing at the other end of the room, huddled in a dark corner between shelves of jars and tools, slowly calming down. The surge of adrenaline is gradually disappearing and leaves me weak with trembling knees, my breathing hard and labored. Hiding my face behind my arms, I am waiting for my troubled mind to form coherent thoughts again.

When I am finally back to my old self, I lift my eyes to look at the two men. They are lying sprawled out on the floor, unharmed, a few feet away from the bed. Or at least the remains of the bed. It looks more like a smoking pile of trash than a usable bed.

I feel sorry, I shouldn't have caused such a mess, somehow I know that they only wanted to help me.

I inch closer to my lifeless companion, but he doesn't react. He must be out cold because I know that I have not killed him. I nudge him tentatively with my foot. He just sighs and rolls over, bumping against one of the legs of the table. I kneel down and reach out for him, this time with my good arm, and I am shaking his shoulder until he wakes up. When he sees me, his hard, black eyes grow wide, and the strange expression on his face is so funny that I have to laugh uncontrollably.

He stares at me as if I had lost my mind. On seeing that I won't stop anytime soon, he just shakes his head in disbelief and moves to waken the doctor. The doctor is staring at me oddly, too, and I have to laugh even harder.

While I am trying to regain my composure, they are talking some more, probably trying to figure out if I am still sane. Then, suddenly, I feel the same pain as in the desert, and my laughing is cut off immediately. It starts out deep in my muscles and sets my whole body on fire. I can't think straight anymore because of the pain, a red haze is drawn in front of my eyes, and all coherent thoughts are swallowed to leave a endless agony. 

When the pain is fading, I feel myself standing, looking down at ... me?

Yes, that is my body, lying on the floor with the tattered and ragged clothes and the bleeding shoulder. Confused, I look to my right. There is my companion staring at me, but I can't see the doctor at all. Looking down at my current body, I discover that I am wearing a white lab coat and clear rubber gloves. Putting one and one together, I come to the conclusion that I have the ability to switch bodies and that I am the doctor at the moment. 

I am not letting this revelation disturb me, but try to use my limited time to its full extent. I am looking for the chip, and my keen eyes soon detect it on the messed-up floor. When I take it in my palm to inspect it closer, I suddenly know what it is and how it works. It is a translating device that connects directly to the brain and feeds it all the knowledge of different languages. It can also connect to the Regen-Tanks, telling them the DNA which has to be synthesized to heal the body. But to connect to the brain, it has to be implanted first, and for that, the patient isn't allowed to move his head. Thus the strapping down on the bed. Well, that chance is gone, I will have to do this the hard way.

I realize that it must be the doctor's memory that I am accessing, and I find just enough time to look for a sentence before I get drawn back into my body. The red hot pain engulfs me completely into an endless torture, but it soon fades away, leaving me in my body on the floor, completely spent. This body-switching is really exhausting, I will have to learn how to control it later on. But first things come first.

When I feel that I have enough energy back, I get up again and walk towards my stunned companion. Standing by his side, I motion for the doctor to come closer. By gesturing to the chip and to my neck, I try to make them understand that I want him to go on. At first, he doesn't seem to understand, but finally, he nods hesitantly. 

Then I turn around so that I can face my companion, and I look into his deep black unreadable eyes. I am reaching for his hand, and he flinches away. Nevertheless, I catch it and put it on my good shoulder. It is time to try out the sentence that I have found in the doctor's brain.

A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I couldn't find a better place to end this chapter. So what do you think? Good? Bad? Plz write a review!!


	5. Control

A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews!!!

To Jewel: Thx, I appreciate that a lot, I hope this part is what you are waiting for

To Videl_S: I am really glad that you like it, G/V is really nice, but I don't have a hand for writing love stories, so there probably won't be any pairing G/V or G/other character. By the way: why did you post 20 copies of your review? One would have been enough for me, so I took the freedom to remove all copies ~ducks behind the computer desk~ hope you are not mad about this. Or is that your way of showing how much you like my story?

To ivy: Thx so much for that tip, it has helped me a lot. Does that chapter solve some of the mystery or is it still too confusing? I don't want to reveal too many connections yet, the main character Gohan doesn't see the connections either at the moment, but perhaps they are still too few. Please tell me if I should insert more flash-backs! And thx a lot for the compliment about my writing style, I really wasn't sure whether it is good or not.

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Control

Marduku stood there dumbfounded. He had no idea what had happened, it just seemed very similar to the confusing event in the Crimson Desert. The small boy would stiffen in pain and collapse, then somebody else close to him would behave strange for some time, kind of like the kid, and then, after a few seconds, the boy would stand up again as if nothing had happened. 

To be honest, the kid freaked him out. He didn't think that that was a normal kid, not only because of those strange incidents, but also because of its abnormal strength, a strength no child could possess. Such a strength had been unheard of – until now. He was sure that the child was at least as strong as Prince Vegeta, the strongest youngster he had ever seen. But it was impossible that the prince of the planet should be outmatched by a simple brat from off-world, wasn't it?

As soon as they had tried to strap the kid to the med-bed, it had become frightened and had struggled. Marduku had had to use all of his strength, which was a remarkable amount, to hold that scrawny brat down, and even then the brat had freed itself without any difficulties, blowing up half of the room in the process. Well, Prince Vegeta had regularly kicked his butt in sparring matches, too, so maybe the brat wasn't as strong as the prince after all. What a relieving thought.

When Marduku had woken up from his involuntary nap on the cold, tiled floor, he had been convinced that the child had been so frightened that it had run away and that he would have to go looking for the kid all over the planet, which would be an arduous task considering the kid had neither a scouter nor a chip. But when he had opened his eyes to be confronted with the sight of the dirty boy kneeling in front of him, he had been pleasantly surprised that the kid hadn't bolted; after all, nobody could have stopped that brat considering the doctor had been out, too.

Forcing his thoughts away from past events to analyze them later on, he set his mind on the present again. The strange kid was currently walking towards him and looking him in the eyes. That boy's eyes were ... different; although they were as deep and black as any Saiyajin's eyes, they radiated innocence, happiness, curiosity, and ... 

Emptiness. Yes, behind that naive, feeling facade, there was a vast, emotionless emptiness. 

He wondered about the reason for the existence of that dark void, he had never seen anything like it in a living being before. Only the dead showed the bleak emptiness the kid possessed. But why would a child have death in its eyes, as if part of its mind had already stepped into its grave?

Being captivated by the hallow eyes, he completely missed the brat signaling the doctor to try again to implant the chip. He found out that he couldn't remove his gaze, that no muscle in his numbed body obeyed his will, and that he was slowly drowning in the two bottomless pools of midnight. But just when Marduku thought he would loose himself in the emptiness, a determined expression started to fill the endless black eyes and covered the void until none of it showed through any more. 

Finally, he was able to avert his sight, and he shook his whole body to get rid of the awkward feeling the contact had left. What kind of child was that?

The kid seemed to be a bright one as it understood the necessity of the implantation of the chip without speaking their language or knowing their culture. The child showed the doc with a few curt gestures that he should go on with the procedure, no fear in its determined eyes. If the brat wasn't afraid of the chip or the doctor, then why had it bolted from the bed?

Turning around, the kid reached for Marduku's callused hand, and out of a reflex, he flinched away. Nevertheless, the kid snatched his big fingers out of the air without any trouble and put them securely on its good shoulder. The kid's hands weren't soft like he had expected, they felt hard and scarred like the hands of a warrior who had never used a regen-tank before. But the skin was a little bit too hot for his taste, and he felt slight tremors run through the boy's body, though he could not tell whether it was from the cold or weakness.

The kid moved its soft lips wordlessly, trying to force unfamiliar syllables out into the open air. Finally, the boy slowly stammered with a heavy accent:

"HH-howldhh mmheee..."

Surprised, he looked down at the brat. Had that been a grotesquely slurred 'hold me'? Did that boy know what he was talking about and what he had just said? What else did he know? 

There were two possibilities, either those two words were just an accident, which Marduku didn't believe. They sounded too close to their 'hold me' to be a coincidence, and they fit too well to the previous gesture of putting a hand on the boy's shoulder; additionally, the pleading expression in the kid's onyx eyes spoke volumes. The other possibility meant that the boy had been cleverly deceiving them all along. He seemed to know exactly how much pain the implantation of the chip would bring, and he had to have at least some basic knowledge of their language. But what would the brat gain from the chip and from hiding his ability of understanding Saiyango?

Angrily, Marduku spat out:

"Can you understand me?"

The brat merely stared at him, no comprehension in its empty eyes. Were those eyes sincere, or had all of that innocence just been an act? That kid was one big enigma, none of its behavior made any sense. He felt as if he had to solve a puzzle in the dark, where some pieces were missing, some pieces were dispensable, and no pieces seemed to fit together at all. 

Hoping that the language chip would enable him to talk to the kid and get some information, he swallowed his anger and looked over the boy's head to the doctor who had stopped dead in his tracks.

"I'll try and hold him as still as possible, while you try to get this over with as fast as you can."

As he looked down to the boy again, he missed the doctor's blatant surprise about his unusual caring. Normally, Marduku would have blasted a potential threat like the boy to oblivion without thinking twice, but this time, he hadn't done so. The friendly curiosity and trust in the kid's attitude had snuck its way into his heart, although Marduku would never admit to that. He was telling himself that he just kept the kid around because of the mystery surrounding it, and that the kid was probably just exceptionally dumb, anyone with a little bit of brain should know not to trust strangers.

Not knowing why exactly he even bothered with explaining, he tried to make it clear to the boy that he shouldn't move although it would hurt a lot. He felt really stupid doing some ridiculous show of pantomime in front of a child, but at least nobody except for the doctor was there to witness his humiliating performance. And the doc knew when to keep silent.

After a few futile attempts, the boy suddenly smiled and nodded. He was glad that the degrading acting was over, but he hoped that the kid had truly understood him, otherwise...

He didn't even want to think about 'otherwise', i. e. being left as either a mental or physical cripple, depending on where and how badly the vulnerable brain had been damaged. He wouldn't wish that cruel kind of fate on anyone.

The doctor started shaving a little bit of the brat's spiky hair at the base of its neck to get a better view of the place where he wanted to do the surgery. That got no reaction from the kid, it just stood as stiff as a board and stared off into nothingness. Then, doctor pulled a greenish-blue marker out of one of the many pockets in his lab-coat, and drew a thick, purple line on the tender, pale skin covering youthful bones, the planned location of the chip. 

It would have been much safer if they had been able to lay the brat down, but the bed was gone, and he had a feeling that the brat wouldn't take kindly to being strapped down again. Fetching a big, white cotton towel to soak up the blood and a sterilized plastic tray with a variety of medical instruments, the doc told Marduku to hold the kid's head down in order to have better access.

When he touched the brat's spiky hair, they had short eye-contact again where he could read the trust and the determined will of the kid. Then he softly dipped the its small head forwards, and the boy stared down to the floor, off into nothingness again.

Having the towel secured around the kid's neck with a small clip, the doctor started the surgery. When the first blood welled forth beneath a sharp scalpel, the boy's good arm came up to Marduku's arm holding the shoulder without moving any other part of his body, gripping it in a death-grip, but otherwise there was no reaction.

Marduku was not very fond of the fact that he could watch everything the doctor was doing. Not that his stomach went queasy or that the sight of blood disturbed him, he had seen much worse in battle. But he had never been a friend of using steel tools to hurt people. He liked the heat and the proximity of hand-to-hand-combat better, there your skills – or the lack thereof – would decide over getting hurt; you could defend yourself and you wouldn't be at the mercy of some lunatic doctors. 

The boy still stared emotionlessly at a point 3 feet behind Marduku's booted feet, only the tightening of the small fingers around his big, muscled forearm gave a hint of the pain the brat went through. So far, the kid was doing really well, it hadn't moved, it hadn't uttered any sound of discomfort, although its breathing was too deep and too controlled to come naturally.

When the doc started cutting a tiny, quadratic hole into the skull, Marduku's hand on the kid's forehead could feel the vibrations caused by the small bone saw, and he gripped the boy's shoulder tighter to reassure him and keep him from moving. 

The small hand on his forearm squeezed harder with brute force until his bones were dangerously close to breaking, and the brat's breathing grew faster and more irregular, but not to the point where it would move its neck from the awkward position it had frozen in. Its defocused black eyes were completely glazed over with the agony, eradicating all trace of sentient thought. The boy looked rather like a mindless animal than a Saiyajin at the moment, but perhaps that was his technique to deal with pain.

He watched as the once white towel was slowly developing big red bloodstains and getting heavier by the second, not acknowledging the pain in his arm where the kid rested its fingers. 

By the time the chip was inserted, the cloth's capacity was filled with the crimson liquid spilling from the boy's open skull. The doctor released the breath he had been holding and stepped away, putting all his reddened tools back on the tray and exchanging the wet and heavy towel for a new one, taking care not to spill any blood. After all, the doc didn't want to mop the floor, and he didn't want to have a meeting with his boss about how some stains had soiled the white tiles, either. The doctor would have to be very lucky to escape the punishment his boss seemed fit with his life.

"Now we will have to wait until the blood-activated mechanism in the chip builds all the synapses to the brain, then we can put him in the regen-tank."

"How long?", Marduku growled.

The doctor shrugged.

"10 to 15 minutes, depending on the boy's brain. We will know when he starts talking. Until then let him rest somewhere, I don't care where."

Against his nature, Marduku nodded silently and pulled his hand away from the brat's head. He was quite impressed by the boy as he had held perfectly still and not made any sound, and now didn't seem to acknowledge his wounds either. The other arm still secured by the boy's hand, he led the kid out of a third door to a tiny room with a single bed covered by clean sheets. 

The boy had not let go of his forearm, but his grip didn't threaten to break his bones anymore, so he didn't say anything. With anyone else he wouldn't even have thought about letting them touch him, but that boy felt special. That kid was different, and he would be damned to hell if he didn't find out what made that brat so different.

He motioned for the kid to sit down and relax as far as its injuries permitted, finally getting his arm back as the kid released it almost hesitantly. Some ugly black and blue bruises started to form where the kid's fingers had dug into his flesh during surgery. The brat sure had a good grip, it wasn't easy to actually hurt Marduku.

The comdio blared some mindless babble out of the hidden speakers installed all over the room, almost hurting his sensitive ears. The boy also made a grimace, for him, it had to be even worse because he couldn't understand anything but the tone of the voice. Waiting for the synapses to build, Marduku leaned back against the wall with crossed arms, listening to the voices from the comdio talk about anything and everything, and keeping a keen eye on the now relaxed kid.

That brat would surely make a good warrior, he was strong and could deal with pain, and the way he had swatted the energy ball away in the Crimson Desert showed that he must have had quite a bit of combat experience; although his eyes made Marduku wonder how the brat could show such innocence and curiosity if he was a fighter. Warriors tended to age fast, their bloody business soon eradicated all childish behavior. 

But the emptiness behind made Marduku shiver, he could not guess what had caused it as the boy wasn't dead, was he?

Suddenly, the boy got an attentive face and seemed to listen to something. A voice from the comdio was shouting:

"Attention all warriors, in a ten-day there will be a tournament to find a worthy trainer for Prince Vegeta. The winner of the tournament will have to fight against King Vegeta, and depending on his performance, he will get to train the prince in the art of fighting. Good luck to all you warriors out there. May the house of Vegeta-Sei always be victorious!"

The brat scrunched up its forehead, then spoke with only a small accent, confused eyes locked on Marduku.

"How ... What is Vegeta-Sei?"

He shook his head.

"I guess the chip has completed the connections. Come with me, I will get you to a regen-tank to heal your wounds. Afterwards, we will talk, and you can get your answers."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned around and left the room. The boy stumbled behind him through the maze of doors and hallways, almost too weak to hold himself upright. The further blood-loss could not have been very helpful, but Marduku offered no support. The brat was a warrior, and warriors did neither need nor accept any help, and offering help would imply that he thought the brat weak. No, the brat had to manage on its own.

Finally, they reached a dark chamber with three dome-shaped tanks lined up at the far wall. The only source of light, an old and flickering neon lamp, did nothing to illuminate the room, it gave the whole atmosphere a creepy undertone and accentuated the shadows between the regen-tanks. Even his voice sounded dark and mysterious, almost re-echoing from the shady, grey walls.

"Strip your clothes, the tank will heal you better when you are naked."

The kid complied without protest, and soon its clothes lay in a heap on the floor, its tail curled protectively around its waist. When the boy turned around to enter one of the regen-tanks, Marduku could see a whole map of strange scars covering every inch of his body, especially in the more sensitive regions. He had seen the scars on the brat's shoulders and arms before because they had not been covered by clothing, and he had thought them to be great in number. But the scarred tissue that was revealed beneath the clothes was a horrifying picture. Those were definitely no battle scars, and he had a small hunch of what else they could be: those scars looked as if the kid had been tortured thoroughly and for a long time, as some of them were already a pale white from age. 

No wonder that the boy could deal with pain that easily, and no wonder that the brat behaved a little bit strange. The physical scars had to be only a part of the violation the boy had endured, and so far, Marduku had not been able to assess the mental damage yet. Perhaps that was the reason for the dead expression of the brat's eyes, maybe part of his mind had been killed during the torture. He would have to question the kid carefully when it came out of the regen-tank.

Seeing that the brat had trouble with the technology of the healing tank, he stepped closer and gently placed the breathing mask over the kid's face. Stepping back, he closed the dome to let the healing routine take its course. Slowly, the clear, green, bubbly liquid filled the tank and let the boy float. At first, the brat seemed troubled and tense, then it relaxed and closed its strangely empty eyes, falling into a deep slumber almost immediately.

Marduku winced as suddenly a monotonous computer voice beeped:

"Approximately five hours to full health"

and he left the room. He would have to wait for the boy to heal until he got his answers. In the mean time, he could do whatever he wanted. Grinning, he left in search for Toroku. Their sparring match had not been finished properly.

----------

dreaming / floating / flying

flashes too quick to follow

pictures / scenes passing by too fast to recognize

green grass / orange clothes / love

dome-shaped house / black hair / gentle face

golden hair / turquoise eyes / lots of anger

blue, crackling energy / smell of ozone / blinding fury and hate

blood red leather / short rod dangling from a chain / familiar feeling of 

PAIN 

/ just meaningless associations, having lost their value, ripped out like pictures of a photo album / 

But they have to mean something, it can't be accident that exactly those pictures are shown. 

a young, lively girl with blond hair and startling blue eyes being raped by some blurry male over and over again, until she isn't sobbing anymore, until she is staring at a distant point with unfocused pupils that have shut out the world

a young, cheerful girl with blond hair and startling blue eyes being tortured by some blurry male over and over again, until she isn't sobbing anymore, until she is staring at a distant point with unfocused pupils that have shut out all feeling

a young, innocent girl with blond hair and startling blue eyes being broken by some blurry male over and over again, until she has learnt her lesson, until she is as hard and merciless as the blurry male 

a tainted woman with blond hair and startling blue eyes raping, torturing, breaking some unrecognizable males over and over again, until they aren't sobbing anymore, until they are finally dead

Who is the young girl / woman? Someone very important, but who? 

He is hanging in shackles from the ceiling, his wrists raw and bleeding, but he is too far gone to notice any pain. His mind has closed itself off to not go insane from the steady bombarding of his senses. He has withdrawn himself to the only place in his mind that she/the young girl/the tainted woman cannot access even with the mental link that they share. But the walls around the place are too strong to be broken down, even by himself. If he had known any feeling in the enclosed space he was caught in, he would have laughed at the irony of the situation. He, one of the strongest fighters in the quadrant, has been defeated by none other that himself.

The soulless shell that has once been his body is still hanging from the ceiling, the wrists raw, and the blood is slowly trickling down its way to the ground.

Drop. 

Drop. 

Drop.

Slowly, the limp body is loosing its life.

Drop – drop – drop

The big crimson puddle of blood beneath its feet is growing.

Drop – drop – drop 

Then I recognize it for the first time: That is my body

Drop – Drop – DRop – DROp – DROP – DROP – DROPP – DROPPP!

I wake up, trembling, my body paralyzed with fear, my scared heart beating hard and angry. My eyes snap open, and I am controlled by fear.

Drop – drop – drop

The horrible sound from my dream is haunting me, I am panting so fast that I am getting dizzy, and no rational thought is allowed in my brain.

Drop – Drop – Drop 

I can feel a dense liquid running down my body, making a big puddle on the floor.

Drop – Drop – Drop – DROp – DROP

I want to get out of here, please let me get out of this insane madhouse!

Drop – Drop – DROp – DROP – DROPP – DROPPP

__

GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!

Glass is shattering in a rainbow of color, and it glitters in the neon light as I watch it sink down on the floor. Time seems to halt around me, and I can follow every shard of it on its course through the air, sometimes reflecting the light, sometimes breaking it in wonderful color-schemes. Everything is so peaceful, the flying, glittering glass is a magnificent wonder making me all tranquil, and the vibrating, ringing clings whenever two of them meet in the air is such an unearthly, harmonious sound. I have never heard anything like it before. Slowly, the shards are settle down on the ground, making the most wonderful music while glittering and gleaming in the light.

Suddenly, shouts from the corridor bring me back to reality, waking me up from my entranced state. I become aware of my surroundings for the first time, and I recognize it as the room I was brought to by the tall guy to heal from my wounds.

I am standing on a round platform that has once been covered by a glass dome which is lying in pieces all over the room now. I realize that I am stark naked, only my mouth and nose are covered by a breathing mask that I don't need any more. I rip it off my face and look for some decent clothing while the bedlam is coming closer. From the sound of it, the people are none too happy that I blew up one of their ... regen-tanks. Yeah, that is the word. So the chip is not only for translating. I will have to find out later on, what exactly that chip does – and if it can be located by a control-center.

They find me while I am still looking for something to cover myself with and they start ranting, shouting, and throwing insults at me. I feel really guilty for destroying one of their valuable regen-tanks and try to tell them that it was just an accident and that I didn't mean to do so. But they won't listen; their voices are mixing, coalescing, amplifying each other, until they are just a loud, threatening noise hurting my sensitive ears. They are all so angry, so mad at me. 

One of them steps forward and is raising a hand. 

Nooo! Please don't hit me! Nooo!

As if a switch had been turned in my brain, my body wrenches control from my mind, and I cower in a corner of the room, not aware of the sharp glass fragments that pierce my bare feet. They stand around me, screaming down at me, making me flinch and curl up in a fetal position, hugging my legs, my furry tail wrapped around my left ankle very hard.

I bury my face in my knees and can only repeat –no-, -no-, -no-, like a broken machine caught in an endless loop. It is all my fault. My fault that perhaps a being in need of healing will die from its wounds. MY FAULT! 

I start trembling uncontrollable. It is my fault. I have destroyed the regen-tank. My fault. Always mine.

A strong hand is stroking my head softly. 

But it is my fault, somebody could die because of my careless actions. 

The strong hand is comforting and reassuring me. 

Although I have destroyed the regen-tank and don't deserve it. So I try to scurry away from the warm fingers.

But the strong hand doesn't go away, no, it is joined by a strong, warm arm that wraps around my shoulders, immobilizing me completely.

I am being held.

What an unusual, but comforting feeling. After some time, the terror lessens a bit, and I am able to relax and look up at the owner of the arm and the hand. He is kneeling besides me, hiding me from all danger.

I manage to suppress a shudder at the grim visage and the furrowed eyebrows of the otherwise quite handsome face. But the glare and the anger of the glittering black eyes isn't directed towards me, it is directed towards the unconscious people on the floor covered in small, sharp glass shards. I recognize them as the people that have attacked me earlier. 

I start stuttering and stammering:

"B-But it-t w-w-as-s m-m-mmy fault!"

He looks at me and asks calmly.

"What was your fault?"

"I have destroyed the regen-tank..."

He is clearly confused. He is studying the glass fragments littering the floor.

"You mean that was you?"

Ashamed, I can only nod my head and look down to the linoleum floor, expecting a violent lashing, be it verbal or physical. Nobody could like someone who was guilty of causing death.

I feel two soft fingers making contact with my chin, pulling it upwards so that I am forced to look into his kind onyx eyes. I am preparing myself for a blow, but it never comes.

He is talking in a soothing voice that you would use on a frightened animal to calm it down. 

"Do you know why they were so excited? It is because nobody has been able to break a regen-tank before. The tanks are made of a very durable material and are intended to withstand the strongest warriors. You must possess extraordinary strength to even crack one."

I am not quite sure about what he had just said. It hadn't been difficult to break the regen-tank, heck, I have done that half asleep, and I don't feel winded at all. 

Suddenly, an alarm inside me goes off and starts to shrill that somebody is coming and will arrive here in less than a minute. I immediately stand up and erect a proud facade, not wanting to be caught showing my emotions. 

The man kneeling next to me seems confused at my sudden mood swing, but utters no word at my question about some suitable clothes. Instead, he opens part of the wall and reaches for a pile of spandex, armor, and boots on a shelf that is being revealed behind the wall panel. It is the same kind of black uniform as the tall guy from the red desert has been wearing and I am asking myself where he is now.

Hell, I should be asking other questions, e. g. where am I, who are you, and most importantly, who am I?

But for the moment, I am busy fighting with the spandex. I have really no clue how to get it on, the only holes I can see are the holes for my five limbs and the one for my head, no zipper, no buttons, no nothing. Helplessly, I look towards the young, friendly man who has comforted me.

His full mouth is twitching slightly, his eyes are sparkling with hidden laughter, and I have to admit that the situation is indeed a little bit funny. I, whom he has indirectly declared one of the strongest warriors on the planet, cannot get a simple piece of black spandex to fit onto my body.

"You are not from this planet, are you?"

His question touches a nerve deep in my soul. Something tells me that he is right and that I don't belong here, but I do look like the natives of this species. I have black, spiky hair, black eyes, a brown tail, 2 arms, two legs, and I can fight. 

Still, I do not belong here. I don't speak their language, I am not familiar with their technology, and I have no clue of their customs.

Suddenly, my head whips towards the entrance, and a second later, the tall guy from the desert is stepping in. He raises an eyebrow at the mess and assumes:

"I suppose it was you who is responsible for the chaos here. Get some clothes and follow me, we have to register you and your strength and we will have to run a full medical check on you."

With those words, he turns on the spot and marches out of the door again. I just gape at his retreating back in confusion, he did not seem as if he was angry at all. Before I can fully comprehend the message, my thoughts are interrupted.

"Hey, you are really lucky, pal! Not everybody survives his first encounter with General Marduku. He must have a thing for you, I have never heard that he cared so much about someone from off-planet."

I am ashamed that I have completely forgotten about the nice person who has comforted me just a few moments ago. To cover it up, I ask back

"You think so?"

He obviously finds my question hilarious as he his bending over in laughter. I frown a little bit, because I don't exactly like being laughed at, and my question was rhetorical, not intended as a joke. Crossing my arms, I lean back against the closed wall panel, a scowl set on the edges of my lips. 

A feeling of familiarity washes over me, it is something about my stance that I must have seen before, but the thought is as hard to catch as a wet soap bar, and it constantly evades my grasp. Sighing frustrated, I give up the chase after several futile attempts.

The laughing man must have thought that the sound was directed at him, because he hastily regains his composure and clears his throat uncomfortably.

"Well, I don't think you should keep General Marduku waiting any longer. He is not the most patient Saiyajin I know. Oh, and for the spandex and the armor: Just stretch the neckline wide enough, then you should have no problem getting in."

I try out his advice, and in no time the spandex covers me like a second skin. Only my tail poses a small problem, but I finally manage to wiggle it through the hole. Flashing him a grateful smile and a quick thanks, I put on the armor and sit down for the boots. First, I have to clean away all the glass fragments away that have dug themselves into my soles, but then the boots are a comfortable fit. Fully clothed, I rise from the floor and head towards General Marduku's location. I am interrupted again by the young, friendly man.

"Eh, are you sure you are going in the right direction? General Marduku went out the other door!"

I scrunch up my forehead in confusion. But then why am I so sure that General Marduku is waiting behind the door in front of me? My instincts are practically screaming at me that I just have to remove the wooden barrier to be face to face with the General, and I am not surprised either when the door opens on its own accord, revealing a quite pissed general.

"Are you done babbling yet? I don't have all day!"

I meekly nod and follow his retreating back, not seeing the stunned and awed expression of the nice man left behind in a room littered with unconscious bodies, sharp glass fragments and a few tiny droplets of my blood.

A/N: So is the story getting less confusing? Do you like it / hate it? Got any ideas for further parts? Write a review!!


	6. Registration

A/N: Disclaimer: none

I am starting to use Japanese terms repeatedly, so I am going to list them to avoid confusion:

-jin - person (Saiyans are the race, Saiya-jin is a person from the Saiyan race)

-sei - planet (added to make clear that you are talking about a planet, not a race or a simple name)

chibi - small

Thanks so much for the reviews!

To Sarah: Thx, I hope this is what you were waiting for

To Twain_Faces: Does this chapter answer your questions? Anyway, the guy who has comforted Gohan after the incident with the regen-tank is still nameless. General Marduku does care for Gohan, but he doesn't show it as obviously as the nameless guy (Vegeta: 'Real Saiya-jin don't have emotions!').

To ivy: Are the connections to the first three chapters being revealed? I didn't want to put all of them into this chapter, so you will have to wait for the next chapter to see more of the picture. I don't want to ruin the fun of this story!!!

To a dark mind: No, the end of chap. 3 was not exactly a dream. I will reveal more about that strange girl-incident in later chapters, first there are the general connections to the first three chapters. I hope this chapter brings some light into the darkness.

----------------------------

Registration

I am following General Marduku, watching his well-trained muscles ripple beneath the black spandex as he is walking in front of me. We are moving through an extended maze of hallways, all very narrow and dimly lit, passing many dark corners and shady doors. Then, all of a sudden, we are out under the open sky again, surrounded by tall, white houses on all sides, the blue windows gaping at us sightlessly. The formerly lavender brilliance has darkened to a saturated, deep purple like a fresh bruise, indicating the closeness of the oncoming night time; and the blazing golden sunrays are setting the roof tops on fire, but can't reach us anymore amongst the close walls on all four sides. 

He takes off into the cool evening breeze, and I follow him without much trouble because my energy has been replenished by the healing tank. From the air, the town looks like a valuable jewel, glittering and gleaming, reflecting the last bits of sunshine. It is surrounded by a small ring of bright greenery, accentuating the otherworldly character of the fiery spectacle so that the town looks as if it had just come down from the heavens; and then the red desert begins. It stretches for miles and miles on end, never changing, only darkening with the lack of light, and now it looks more than old, spilled blood than ever before, making me shudder.

We are flying towards the sinking sun, leaving the gleaming, golden town behind the horizon very soon. But we do not seem to catch up to the vanishing, glowing disc at all; it is rather evading our grasp and starting to slip over the slight curve where the crimson sand meets the purple sky. After countless miles of scarlet desert, my eyes detect a lush green line winding through the red sand from horizon to horizon, only about two or three miles in depth. From our height, everything looks so small; and as we are seemingly inching closer slowly, I can spot a big bluish-purple river lined by a large city on both sides in midst of the greenery. 

Nearing the town increasingly rapid, more details are revealed. All the maddeningly white houses are at least four stories tall, and they stretch for several blocks; none of them are built after a plan, they are scattered over the town, creating a complex labyrinth of streets, places, and alleys. Occasionally, a person can be seen walking through the streets or children playing games, but for the most part, everything is deserted. Only the light behind many blue-colored windows is hinting at the existence of people living in the long town.

We are touching down in a bumpy alley in front of another white-washed building; although this one does not look as grand and regal as the houses of the other town; the whole town doesn't have the luxurious and rich appearance the other one had, but it is far from looking shabby or degenerate. This time, I can even understand what the wooden sign, that is held in place over the doorframe by four rusty iron nails, says. '_Registration office_'.

General Marduku is opening the small door, and he has do duck a little bit so as not to bang his tall head on the low entrance. But once he has squeezed the bulk of his body through, the ceiling is almost 10 feet high and an entry hall with a small desk occupied by a strange person is uncovered. 

This person has light blue skin of the same hue as the blazing sun over the red, hot desert, seven fingers on each hand; and an unbelievably thin and fragile-looking body is being revealed when he comes around the table to meet us. His (I have decided that the person is male because he is lacking any distinctively female features) face is a long oval framed by a few strands of thick, greenish-brown hair, and his slanted eyes are a disturbing pupil-less fiery red. His soft, melodious voice makes the guttural and growling language of the Saiya-jin sound like music when he greets us.

"Follow me. And don't let my frail appearance deceive you, boy, I am quite a formidable fighter, although I am a lot weaker than you ... or General Marduku. My people is known for their extraordinary techniques rather than for brute strength."

Is he a telepathic? I am pondering over that issue while we are being led to a cozy room with a big, brown couch and two comfortable arm chairs. The minimally inclined walls are painted a cheerful yellow, and the soft evening shine is seeping through the tall window, enveloping the whole room in warm colors. His slender hand motions for me to sit down on the couch, and he places himself on one of the cushioned chairs, facing me. General Marduku only retreats into a corner, leaning against the wall with crossed arms, merging into the shadows.

I am a little bit nervous as for what is going to happen now, and the blue person seems to sense my apprehension as he is bothering to explain the whole situation to me.

"One of the special abilities of my people is to assess the mental condition of others. Everybody has to have a mind-check every few years to discover any harmful potential within them. So just relax and lean back, it won't last very long, and it won't hurt. And don't worry, I am not going to look at your secrets."

Well, I don't care about him seeing some secrets of mine, within the few days I can remember, there has nothing been to hide. Nonetheless, I am still edgy, but I don't know why. Tucking my cold feet under, I take a deep breath and lean against the back of the couch, trying to expel the tension of my muscles together with the air in my lungs. He is watching me intently, the pupil-less red eyes seem to take in every minute detail; and they are working like huge magnets, drawing all of my attention to them. Only putting up little fight, I let myself get caught by the intense stare, studying his alien features in return. 

I don't even realize my body slacking when all my muscles loose their tension as a second, colorless lid comes down over his blazing red eyes, making them look like hidden behind a milky glass, almost as if he was blind. But the gaze of the blind eyes is stronger than ever; it is drilling down into the unknown depth of my black pupils, capturing me, transfixing me, slowly erasing all my surrounding environment. Nothing exists besides the two glowing coals that hold all of my attention; my whole universe is filled with them.

I feel a slight probing at the fringes of my mind, as if some tender fingers would outline the edges. That has to be the ... _Ueisutodamupu-jin _(*), the crimson eyes insert. No, that was the Ueisutodamupu-jin communicating with me on a mental plain. I am surprised how easy and natural this kind of understanding comes to me, as if I had been used to it for years. His mind feels warm and comforting, but nevertheless, it is a foreign body in my thoughts, and my own mind is starting to react to the intrusion.

The Ueisutodamupu-jin is digging deeper, looking through my brain layer for layer, exerting an uncomfortable pressure. His touch is soft, practiced, but it sends cold shivers running up my spine. I try to relax and keep calm despite the unnerving sensations, the sensations that remind me somehow of the tortured body from my dream, and the mind within that had shut itself off. I am aware of the fact that the empty shell was me, and that the forgotten part of my personality is trying to tell me something urgent. 

Concentrating harder to grasp the elusive feelings, I am closing in on them, slowly making progress. Fragments are being revealed, but never a whole picture. My mind has been touched before ... it hasn't been touched to help me ... it was touched to hurt me. Hurt me badly. Hurt me so badly that my soul had to be locked away to not go insane. And now, soft, feather-like fingers are raking through my brain, awakening the same uncomfortable feelings. It almost feels like the mental touch of ... her/the young girl/the woman.

__

Who is she/the girl/woman?

I don't know. She means pain/anger/hatred/love.

The Ueisutodamupu-jin is digging even deeper, tracking the picture of _her_ to the origin. He is following the chain of associations down to my subconsciosness. Suddenly, he is _touching _something horrible buried deeply in my brain, and a scene is filling my mind, a scene I also recognize from the dream.

He is hanging in shackles from the ceiling, his wrists raw and bleeding, but he is too far gone to notice any pain. His mind has closed itself off to not go insane from the steady bombarding of his senses. He has withdrawn himself to the only place in his mind that she/the young girl/the tainted woman cannot access even with the mental link that they share. But the walls around the place are too strong to be broken down, even by himself. 

The soulless shell that has once been his body is still hanging from the ceiling, the wrists raw, and the blood is slowly trickling down its way to the ground.

Drop. 

Drop. 

Drop.

Slowly, the limp body is losing its life while the barrier holding back the mind is being assaulted. Desperate, I try to communicate with the Ueisutodamupu-jin.

__

I am starting to remember what I am not supposed to remember. See what you have done to me?

Drop – drop – drop

The big crimson puddle of blood beneath its feet is growing.

Drop – drop – drop 

__

I don't want you in here. Get out of my brain! You are making everything worse.

Drop – Drop – DRop – DROp – DROP – DROP – DROPP – DROPPP!

__

Move! Go away! I want this to stop! Please...

But he isn't going away, he is trying even harder to force the retreat my mind has built open. _She _has done the same, _she _has also wanted to break through the barrier to cause more suffering. I don't want anyone to _touch _me, it only brings pain, unbelievable pain; my head is throbbing under the constant assault, and I know that is only the lesser evil. I feel threatened, I don't want to see what is behind the wall. I have enough trouble with the few shreds of my former life that are haunting through my brain, and the whole package has to be much worse. 

I don't want to remember. 

**__**

It scares me.

The brutal attacks against the wall are relentless, only increasing in strength. No, please don't let the Ueisutodampu-jin break through, I don't think I could handle the shock. Please don't make me remember, please!! Haven't I suffered enough? 

I am trying to collect all my strength to enforce the barrier and to keep him away, but I am so weak. He is shaking everything I throw at him off like a mere pin-prick, and he is starting to subdue me by telling me that he has to straighten out my mind. But I don't want to be controlled by him.

Panic is rising in my throat at the thought of being subjected and having to remember. I don't want to hurt worse than I am already hurting. The bottomless panic is making me stronger, but completely irrational, wasting my strength on futile attempts. I am afraid of the Ueisutodampu-jin, he wants to break the wall around my innermost being. If he'd succeed, there would be endless fear, endless pain, endless nightmares, endless darkness; I would be swallowed, I would loose my identity as a thinking being. I don't want that to happen. Please don't make me remember. Please!!!

Just like the incident on the med-bed, I am taken over by my instincts when my mind isn't working any more. My mental defenses, which I didn't even know I had, are kicking in with amazing power. They carelessly _grab _the Ueisutodamupu-jin and they haul his writhing mind out as if it was a piece of garbage, throwing him back into his own head and blocking my brain completely. 

Slowly calming down with the foreign mind removed, I hear a soft thump and I open my eyes which I can't recall having closed. The Ueisutodamupu-jin has fallen out of his chair and is squirming on the carpeted floor, clutching his head in agony, his limbs thrashing around wildly.

That was my fault, wasn't it? I shouldn't have thrown him back so hard. I am really sorry, I didn't want to hurt him, I only wanted to be left alone. I think he wanted to help me, to do me a favor by straightening my mind out, and this is the way I repay him?

Suddenly, I am rudely torn out of my guilt trip. The sharp, ripping pain which indicates the body-switching is starting out deep in my muscles, spreading, taking over. My last coherent thought is that I have to control that ability someday, then I am swallowed by agony.

__

My head is hurting so badly, what did that brat do to me? How can that brat be so powerful?

Straining my mind to the breaking point, I am able to suppress the pain, focusing on clear thinking again. I realize that something is different from the last two times. I am in the brain of the Ueisutodamupu-jin, but he is still there, his spirit or whatever you call it, is still residing in his head. His thoughts are my thoughts, but at the same time, I can think my own. 

Concentrating hard to keep the pain under control, I make up a plan and hurriedly start looking around in the hurt brain for a healing method. I don't know when I am going to be pulled back to my body again. 

He was right, the Ueisutodampu-jin really have a huge variety of techniques, and it is really a pity that I can't have a look at all of them. However, that would by mind robbery, and I couldn't answer for this, so I don't go into details but leaf through them very fast. Amongst countless different healing techniques, I find out that he would be able to clear the pain if he had just enough time to concentrate. 

Swallowing hard, I know what to do. I can already feel the beginning burning of the transition back to my body, so I swiftly hold on to the Ueisutodamupu-jin's monster headache and try to bring it with me. Time is running short, I am rapidly expelled from the foreign mind, and I have not enough time to brace myself against the oncoming torture.

The endless hell of agony doesn't seem to stop when I am back in my body, it just seems to concentrate in my head. I have used up most of my strength during the transition and the subduing of the foreign pain, so I don't have any energy left to resist the force that is trying to scramble my thoughts. Curling up in a ball and wrapping my arms and my tail around my knees protectively, I am surrendering myself to the pain. My last coherent thought was the hope that the Ueisutodamupu-jin will do something soon, I am not sure how long I can take this. A thick, red haze is wavering in front of my eyes, and my head is hurting, hurting much worse than at the implantation. My whole world is filled with the brain-splitting agony, and I loose all sense of time.

I can't tell how much later it is, but gradually, the pounding in my head is lessening to the point that it is bearable again. Sighing relieved, I relax slowly, and exhaustedly I fall asleep.

----------

Groaning, Rabishu (**) got up from the uncomfortable chair he had fallen asleep in last evening. His neck was terribly stiff, and his back was aching, too; he should know not to stay up that long at night. Especially when he had to work early shift. Another day at the registration office was lying ahead of him, promising many hours of boredom. 

He did not like being stuck in his office all day long, but at least here on Vegeta-sei, they treated him with a heck of a lot more respect than his own family or his own people did. And, more importantly, they paid him quite a bit of money, supplied him with shelter and food, and even let him train. That was indeed much more than what he would have gotten on his home planet. And that was worth the boredom of his job. After all, an old curse amongst his people said: 'May you live in interesting times.'

He shuffled over to the red tiled bathroom; and holding his head over the sink, he splashed his face with ice cold water to force his tired brain awake. After a brief shower, Rabishu carefully robed himself in his red uniform signaling his job as registration officer. Then, feeling energized again, he trudged downstairs, through many unoccupied rooms and hallways, coming out of a tall wooden door behind his registration desk. 

There were only 200 registration offices on the whole planet, but with a population of less than 30 million Saiya-jin and an average life span that consisted of 250 standard years for a healthy male, he had only two new registrations and about ten mind-checks per day. Most of them were routine work and done within a few minutes, so the other six to seven hours on his job, he was bored out of his mind.

But that was still better than life on his home planet. Ueisutodamupu-sei had been dangerously overpopulated before the Saiya-jin had come, they had had to fight severe environmental pollution, and not enough food could be grown for all of the 30 billion residents. The Saiyan invasion had radically solved that problem by killing all Ueisutodamupu-jin except for the few mentally gifted who made up less than 0.1% of the former population.

For this deed, all his relatives hated the Saiyan purgers, but Rabishu did not. He thought that if the Saiya-jin hadn't come, the Ueisutodamupu-jin would have starved and suffocated themselves after exploiting all of the planet's natural resources. Now, with only about 30 million inhabitants, Ueisutodamupu-sei could recover from the mal-treatment it had received under the rule of his people, and the continents didn't look like huge, degenerate slums anymore. There grew even some greenery amongst the destroyed cities again. 

Additionally, the Saiya-jin had brought a lot of useful technology with them, e. g. real space travel (the lousy attempts to reach neighbor planets only a few million miles away didn't count in his opinion), which could have opened up countless possibilities.

But except for a few enlightened individuals, his people hated the Saiya-jin with an unrivaled passion and attacked every single one of them. Due to the disharmony amongst the single clans, no big coalitions could be formed and no strong fighting union could arise, so the Saiya-jin had made Ueisutodamupu-sei into a training planet for their elite soldiers who tested their strength against the variety of techniques the Ueisutodamupu-jin had developed. And the fast reproduction rate of his people, which had been responsible for the problem of overpopulation in the first place, made it possible that the fallen Ueisutodamupu-jin were always replaced with young ones.

On Ueisutodamupu-sei, you had to keep an eye open at all times, even when sleeping; otherwise you might have the misfortune of being in the way of a vicious battle waged amongst several Ueisutodamupu-jin and a Saiya-jin. Rabishu had grown up in that rough environment, being bred to fight; but one day he had had enough. He had approached a Saiyan fighter and had managed to convince him to take him off-planet. It had helped that the Saiya-jin was one of the few telepathically gifted amongst the Saiyan race, and that the Saiya-jin had been able to check his mind for any deception. Rabishu could feel to this day the brutal investigation he had had to endure that day, being forced to lay every intimate thought bare in front of his potential enemy; but in his opinion, it had been worth it.

Thus Rabishu had been brought to Vegeta-sei and had easily found a job at the registration office after getting used to the nearly tripled gravity. At first, the change had been very hard, but he had found out that it helped him increase his strength tremendously from 200 to nearly 450. 

Rabishu had not been the first one to flee from Ueisutodamupu-sei, nor was he the last one, so the number of Ueisutodamupu-jin on Vegeta-sei had been slowly increasing. By now, there were roughly 300 Ueisutodamupu-jin, most of them distributed to all registration offices over the planet, a job they were suited for best. Occasionally, an exceptionally strong and talented Ueisutodamupu-jin was allowed to teach fighting techniques to the few Saiyan children who had not been sent off-planet. 

As long as they didn't cause any trouble, all Ueisutodamupu-jin were accepted amongst the Saiyan population as equal members to the third-class warriors, and they could socialize with whomever their class permitted them to do so.

Sighing, Rabishu sat down and crossed his legs in the Lotus-position to meditate and hone his mental skills, having nothing better to do after checking two routine cases. Time passed by, but he didn't notice being caught in a deep trance. His eight-hour shift was almost over when two more Saiya-jin entered; a small and slender shadow together with a very tall and bulky one were outlined against the settling sun that sent its golden rays through the open door. 

The smaller one, a chibi, broadcast his way too cheerful and innocent thoughts out in the open, having no barriers whatsoever. The boy was currently marveling over Rabishu's physiology, apparently never having seen another race before. That was strange. Either the chibi had grown up on Vegeta-sei and was thus familiar with the Ueisutodamupu-jin, or he had been off-planet the whole time. But there he should have seen many curious figures, too, many planets were populated with strange, sentient life forms. Without seriously infringing the boy's privacy, Rabishu would not be able to solve that mystery, and unauthorized intrusion was strictly forbidden under the Saiyan honor code. He was only allowed to perform the mind check, nothing else.

Feeling for the boy's power level out of curiosity, he almost choked on the air. How in the world did that brat get so powerful, almost 2,000? Rabishu had sensed nothing like the energy in front of him before, not even Prince Vegeta had such a high basic level. Perhaps, the boy was already powered up completely for some strange reason, but even then only few could compare to him.

He was distracted from his considerations when the tall Saiya-jin curtly introduced them telepathically, and demanded a new registration for the chibi. The boy did not seem to catch it, so Rabishu raised his voice to inform him.

"Follow me. And don't let my frail appearance deceive you, boy, I am quite a formidable fighter, although I am a lot weaker than you", and not wanting to insult the General, he added lamely, "or General Marduku. My people is known for their extraordinary techniques rather than for brute strength."

He led them into an unoccupied registration room and motioned for the boy to sit down on the couch. First, he would have to assure himself of the boy's mental health, and then he could go on with the actual registering, the tiresome filling out of the registration forms.

Quickly entering the boy's mind, he started looking around for any abnormalities while vocally reassuring the boy that it wouldn't hurt.

Feeling the boy shiver violently, he checked the origin of the uncomfortable feeling and discovered the life-like picture of a beautiful humanoid female with blond hair and deep, blue, haunted eyes. The picture was loaded with so much emotion that it almost overwhelmed him, he wanted to know who she was. But the boy's brain couldn't provide any information, it was surprisingly empty of any memories.

So he followed the picture of the female through the different layers of consciousness, getting deeper and deeper involved. Every layer was as empty as the first one, only fragments of memories littering them, making Rabishu wonder what had happened to the chibi. Only the picture wound a strong thread through the different layers, connecting them, holding them together so that they would not fall apart. 

When he neared a wall where the thread was abruptly cut off, a scene started to fill his mind. It was an image of the boy hanging from the ceiling in handcuffs, and he was bleeding from various injuries. The boy had built himself a mental retreat which the female could not access even with the link they Shared.

Yes, that would be a reason for the strong thread, a mental connection built by the Sharing. But how in the world had that boy managed to severe the channel so abruptly? And how had he managed to close his real self away? If Rabishu could just break the wall, then the boy would be free and able to use his full mental capacities.

He heard the echo of blood dripping down, reverberating through the empty mind while he was trying to damage the barrier. Then, for the first time, the boy addressed him directly.

__

I am starting to remember what I am not supposed to remember. See what you have done?

Rabishu decided to ignore it, the boy could only profit from having his mind straightened out. But it seemed as if the boy didn't want to have his memory back.

__

I don't want you in here. Get out of my mind, you are making everything worse.

Whatever the woman had done to him, it seemed to have conditioned his mind thoroughly against any mental contact. Gritting his teeth, Rabishu continued although he was well aware of the fact that it could hurt the boy.

__

Move! Go away! I want this to stop. Please...

But if the boy wanted to be accepted by the Saiyan society, this had to be done. Rabishu knew he had to open the barrier, the unknown personality behind it could be a dangerous threat, so he kept on hammering against the wall. He realized that the boy was getting more frightened and agitated by the second, but he had to keep his work up.

What he hadn't expected was the following reaction. Suddenly, the boy clawed at Rabishu's mind with very aggressive defenses, binding the Ueisutodamupu-jin completely, and then the chibi threw Rabishu brutally back into his own body, leaving some nerves seriously irritated. That child was dangerously strong, mentally as well as physically.

It hurt so much that Rabishu lost control over his long limbs and fell out of the chair, writhing on the floor in agony.

__

My head is hurting so much. What had that brat done?

Some part of Rabishu registered that the boy was lingering in his mind, leafing through Rabishu's memories, but the major part of him was paralyzed in pain. He could feel that the boy had found what he was looking for. The chibi retreated, and the boy was wrapping his mental self around Rabishu's pain, shielding him from the brunt of it. Then suddenly, the chibi was gone from his mind, together with the pain.

The boy somehow must have taken it with him, because Rabishu could see him lying helplessly on the floor, clutching his head in agony and curling up into a fetal position. Quickly looking through the memories the boy had run through but not even accessed, Rabishu was surprised that it had been only some healing techniques, the last one being the one needed to cure the pain, the one which Rabishu couldn't perform because of the lack of concentration caused by the pain shooting through his system.

Focussing completely on the boy, Rabishu slowly calmed down the child's inflamed nerves, making the chibi relax and sigh contently. Then, the boy fell asleep immediately. Rabishu picked him up from the floor and carefully lay the small frame on the couch, still trying to force some sense into the recent events.

Slowly straightening, he turned to General Marduku who had been watching the whole scene with a raised eyebrow.

"Well?", the Saiya-jin cued.

Rabishu took a deep breath and started summarizing, trying not to reveal intimate details.

"First off, the boy has kind of lost his memory; at least, he can't access great parts. From the remaining fragments, I could reconstruct only a small part of it. He must have been heavily abused, physically as well as mentally, conditioning some flee-and-hide reflexes into him that can be triggered by certain experiences.

"The mental abuse was done through a probably forced Sharing; and to escape it, the boy has locked his real self and all of his memories away. So, the boy you have found in the desert has the whole knowledge of roughly three days, and a lot of power and reflexes he doesn't know of himself, either. He is a potential danger, but I can sense no imminent threat from his person. With your permission, I will keep him here and help him control his reflexes until I have been able to release all of his memories."

General Marduku looked at Rabishu sharply, having immediately sensed that the Ueisutodamupu-jin was hiding something.

"And what was that with the whole falling-out-of-the-chair-episode?"

Rabishu averted his eyes a little bit, not wanting to admit to his failure.

"I tried to breach the wall the boy had erected around his true self, and I must have triggered one of his reflexes. The boy has thrown me out of his mind with great force, and that had temporarily overloaded my Central Nervous System. Then, the boy has somehow transferred my pain to himself, and I could heal him. I also want the boy to stay here so that I can train his mental and physical powers so that he won't hurt anybody."

General Marduku only grunted as an answer, seemingly satisfied, and turned towards the small door he had come in. Over his broad shoulder, he called:

"In half a ten-day, I will be back to check on the brat. You better should have made some progress by then."

Letting the unveiled threat hang in the room, General Marduku left the surprised Ueisutodamupu-jin. 

Since when did General Marduku care about a mere boy?

----------

HE is watching the boy. 

Yes, the boy has many hidden talents that have yet to unfold, and HE is waiting for the results. Perhaps it has been a mistake to send him to Denna. HE hasn't expected Denna to go as far as to invade the boy's mind and drive the child to such a severe reaction, although it has certainly helped to point out the boy's strength of character.

But things in the past should not be regretted, one should always make the best out of them and look towards the future; and it has been rather interesting watching the set of events unfold. The boy has been acting bravely and so far has proved himself to be worthy of becoming HIS heir. Despite the unplanned occurrences, the test is still on, and there is still hope left for the boy to pass it. The boy only has to regain his memories and find HIM.

HE is waiting.

------------------------ 

A/N: 

****

(*) Try to pronounce Ueisutodamupu the Japanese way: 

pronounce the three vowels at the beginning separately (**_u _**like in **_w_**here, **_e _**like in g**_e_**t,**_ i _**like in s**_i_**t), 

the **_u_** in between two consonant or at the end isn't pronounced at all 

the **_o _**in between a **_t_** and another consonant is hardly pronounced either, 

**__**

a like in m**_o_**ther...

****

(**) same for Rabishu: all the rules of (*) apply... 

Sorry for the ridiculous names, I had a major block on those. Hope that you can cope with them. So, what do you think of this chapter? Like it / hate it how I describe the same event from different perspectives? Please review!


	7. Training

A/N: Wow, so many reviews! Sorry guys for the long wait, but this chapter was terribly hard to write. I couldn't even put a lot of angst in it because too much angst would ruin the whole thing (you can only have that much angst without dulling to its effects). It is more like a filler (a necessary filler, mind you!), and this is the first chapter I didn't already have previously typed in. So far, I've always had at least a rough draft of my chapters, but now I have to start from scratch with each new chapter. Please bear with me, I am working real hard on this story, but I also have many tests coming up within the next few weeks, so I don't know how fast I can update.

To Nikora: Thanks, I don't plan on ending this story anytime soon!

To ivy: Thank you so much, you don't know how much your constant reviews mean to me. I am really trying to update this as fast as possible, but at the moment I have a bad case of writer's block. For more info read the A/N at the top.

To a dark mind: Wow, two reviews for one chapter, that is great!! For your question about Denna: I will answer it in later chapters, but thanks for reminding me, I had almost forgotten about her.

To Ashes Fall: Thanks for the review! I am not going to reveal more information on HIM anytime soon, what I already gave you should be enough for the moment. Did you read the part in the first chapter where Kibito thinks about HIM? That explains everything you have to know about HIM, and I just love mysterious entities, so I am going to keep HIM hidden! 

To Twain-Faces: Weeeellllll.... Within the next few chapters the question about what has happened to Gohan to make him so frightened should be cleared, but don't expect any answers in this one. After all, I can't reveal everything as the story would be boring then. And how Gohan came to Vegeta-sei? I am not going to tell you, I can just tell you that he isn't going to stay on Vegeta-sei very long ... Hope that satisfies you (NOT!) lol, anyways, thanks for the review!

--------------------------------

Training

Slowly, my thoughts are drifting towards the surface of my consciousness as I am gradually emerging from the depths of the dreamless slumber I have been caught in. Shaking off the clammy remnants of a dream already forgotten, I open my eyes that are glued shut and tiredly sit up. The room is still the same one I fell asleep in, and the brown couch I have been resting on is very comfortable. 

Only the Ueisutodamupu-jin is here, he is floating in one corner in a lotus position, glowing slightly and dying the whole room in a cold and iridescent white light. His hovering figure looks so hauntingly familiar; and his tall features with the completely focused expression that is turned inwards are concentrated to the utmost extent. 

"So you are awake? It's about time."

I am startled by the sudden gruff voice of the Ueisutodamupu-jin, who has been meditating just a moment ago. But now, he is straightening his long blue limbs and stands up to his full height of well over 7 feet. Although he is incredibly tall, his slender and fragile-looking frame make him seem frail and breakable rather than intimidating.

"I told you once before: don't let yourself be deceived by my fragile appearance, I am quite a formidable warrior."

But I know that he couldn't, and more importantly, wouldn't hurt me; I feel as if I could trust him completely, the same feeling I had with General Marduku before. I am safe with him.

"That is something we have to talk about. I don't know how you managed it, but you have wormed your way into General Marduku's heart, although he would never admit to it. He has left you here so that we can work on your mental and physical abilities, and you need to learn more about your reflexes. You don't want to be surprised by yourself in battle. And last but not least, I will have to get through that barrier in your head to free your other personality; otherwise you will never be accepted by the Saiya-jin."

Fear clamps down on me within an instant, choking my throat and stopping my breathing. No, don't make me remember, I don't want to know what is behind the wall that is keeping my other self away from me. I don't want it, the other one only promises pain and agony, it is dangerous to my mental health – and to the health of other people around me...

As if sensing my distress, which he probably does with his mind reading abilities, the Ueisutodamupu-jin hastily reassures me.

"But that part, we will save for later when you have been mentally stabilized and feel as if you can take the risk. For now, you need a name, I can't always call you 'child' or 'boy'. Do you have any suggestions?"

A name? For me? That's right, I don't remember mine at the moment. It is shut off behind the invincible barrier. Strangely, I don't miss it at all, I never think of myself with my name. What I do miss are memories about a childhood, a life, parents. They are all blocked by that wall, and that makes me feel uneasy. I have no place where I belong to, I have no family, and I have no past. I feel strangely uprooted, unknowing, utterly helpless. But that is eons better than having the retreat opened; the shadows I can sense lurking behind the wall are overwhelmingly dark and strong, they would completely annihilate me.

Slamming the lid down on those oppressive thoughts, I turn my attention back to the question. What name? Hesitantly, I ask:

"Could you please make some suggestions which names would fit into this society?"

He is clearly amused, his small lips are twitching upwards at the corners, and his crimson eyes lose their hardness for a moment. Then, he is listing some.

"Seresu, Zupah, Jitsengu, Hattai, Chaduran, Zuroku, Hakizu, Bardoku, Putouruka,..."

Those names sound really strange, and I have to pull myself together to not start laughing aloud. Though one special name has caught my interest. Bardoku. I know that I have heard that one before, but where? 

Was it my name? 

No, I don't think so, it doesn't roll off my tongue that easily, but it still sounds familiar. It is really annoying having so many feelings of familiar things but never being able to actually identify one. Could it be the name of one of my relatives or friends? An important person on whatever planet I have come from? 

Interrupting the flood of different names, I insert:

"Then I would like to be called Bardoku."

He only nods, accepting my choice of name which is probably as good as any other.

"You can call me Rabishu. We are going to start with your physical training and reflexes at first; then afterwards, we are going to work on your mental capability. Wait here."

His light blue frame which is clad in scarlet robes abruptly vanishes through the door and leaves me alone with the rising sun. Why exactly does he want to train me? From all I have been able to gather so far, Saiya-jin are not friendly people, and still he is going to help me to control my reflexes. Even more so, he wants to train my mental and physical capacities. I just don't get it. What makes me so special that at first General Marduku, then another Saiya-jin, and then a Ueisutodamupu-jin want to help and protect me? 

A few minutes later, Rabishu-sama reenters the room, now clad in a black and formfitting spandex like mine, but without the hole for the tail. I am glad that he has shed the red robes, because they made me feel uneasy and gave me a dark scent of foreboding. With a short gesture, he motions me to follow him, and soon, we are in front of the registration office again, moving deeper into the infinite maze of the white-washed town. 

On the way to our destination, we stop for a small snack at one of the many market stands that are scattered all over the town. The market here is not as busy as the one in the other town, but still all the different smells and sights behold so much new for my curiosity that I could explore the streets forever. Rabishu-sama is guiding me patiently and he is paying attention so that he doesn't loose me in the maze between all the spiky-haired Saiya-jin. 

He is leading me through countless bustling streets and alleys to an especially tall building which stands out by having neither windows nor a roof. The walls are at least fifty feet high and very solidly built, stretching for blocks on end. Guiding me inside through a tiny door which I have previously overlooked, he explains the purpose and the different parts of the building to me. It is a very advanced training center which every being on the planet is allowed to use to strengthen their mind and their body. There are countless sparring rooms, many showers, some meditation chambers, an obstacle course, and a healing room with three regen-tanks. 

Rabishu-sama is heading towards one of the empty sparring rooms which are marked by a green light besides the door, ignoring the stares people give us when we walk by. This whole city is a strange mixture of high technology like wired houses, micro chips, space travel, healing tanks; and medieval simplicity like brick buildings, no electric light, plastered streets and busy markets. Though I guess that they don't actually need the electric light because everybody here can control his _ki_ enough to illuminate a room, and as everybody can fly, no transportation vehicles are needed, either.

The heavy iron door swishes open with a hissing sound when Rabishu-sama presses the green, glowing button. After ushering me into a big, dark room, I can hear the door slam closed with a loud clang, taking all the light away, leaving me in a black void. 

Just when I start getting angst-ridden, Rabishu-sama is lighting several ki-balls and sends them to the corners of the room, dying it in a sickly pale green shine. I stand rather in the middle of an very dimly lit, enormous hall that is 300 by 300 yards big and at least fifteen feet high. 

Looking around, I can spot several black burn marks on the metal walls and even some small dents in the hardened alloy. This room is probably used quite often, as the stench of old sweat and dried blood penetrates the air, making me almost gag. Not knowing what to do as I have no conscious knowledge of fighting, I just stand there limply, my hands hanging lifelessly by my sides. 

Rabishu-sama senses the predicament I am in and comes at me with a slow punch. In fact, it is so slow that I don't even need to rely on my instincts to avoid it but simply step aside. Rabishu-sama has anticipated that move though, and he launches his other fist at me lightening fast. At the last possible instance, my left hand rushes up to deflect the blow, and we are beginning to dance through the room, me blocking, him attacking. 

Slowly, I start recognizing patterns in which my limbs are moving to defend against blows and kicks from all angles. Swipe the arm away, catch the following fist to my stomach, block the leg, and simply sidestep the next assault. Duck under the high kick, deflect the punch aimed for my face, and evade the fist looking for my ribs. Not very hard, as the same instincts from the desert slow all movements to the point where I can easily see them and have no trouble whatsoever at keeping up. Those instincts are telling me a lot.

So far, Rabishu-sama has only been using approximately half of his strength, but now he is going all out. He flies a short distance away from me for the first time in our battle and prepares an energy attack. What must have happened within the fraction of a second seems boringly slow to me and my heightened senses. His left palm is facing me, his right hand is gripping his left wrist to stabilize the hand, which is starting to glow in a golden shine. The shine is focusing a few inches in front of the palm pointing towards me, and a small, radiant sphere is being formed. With a yell, he sends the yellow energy ball hurling in my direction, and to my surprise, I am not swatting it away like the one in the desert but rather catch it easily, holding it suspended in the air between my hands and taking care not to touch the surface. 

I am fascinated by the swirling energy of the focused sphere, studying it, analyzing it to the best of my abilities. The energy ball has a unique _ki_ signature which feels kind of like Rabishu, but weaker, maybe a tenth of Rabishu's power. It is made to detonate on impact, and it probably cannot be guided during the flight.

Suddenly, I can feel the energy destabilize and become volatile. I know that if I make one wrong movement, it would blow up into my face with a deadly potential from such close range. The light is not a homogenous golden sphere anymore, it is rather flickering and swelling, and I have to get away from it as fast as possible. 

Not trusting in what my body is doing, I watch in horror as my hands start glowing a sizzling blue and clash together, smashing the energy ball. But instead of exploding into my face, the sphere blows up in the refined space enclosed by my hands. To my surprise, I only feel a slight tingling, more like an electric shock than anything else, and my hands aren't burnt either. I try to get rid of the energy coating my fingers, but nothing happens, they are still glowing a faint blue and tingling, and occasionally a spark is jumping from one finger to the next.

I am so absorbed in my futile attempts to shake off the energy that I don't realize that the Ueisutodamupu-jin is sneaking up behind me, preparing a sneaky surprise attack. Suddenly, my body is whirling around on its own accord, and before I even have time to think about what is happening, one of my charged hands is making contact with Rabishu-sama's forehead, immediately releasing all energy into him. 

My fingers stop glowing the same moment he is flung backwards several yards and smacks against the wall, sliding down slowly, not moving any more. In an instant, I am at his side, fearfully checking if he is still alive. With a sigh of relief, I realize that he is only knocked out and his rather high _ki_ tells me that he is not seriously injured. 

Is he going to punish me for my uncalled reaction? I didn't exactly mean to hurt him, but that is no excuse. I should have had more self control than to knock him out. I can be glad that I didn't kill him.

Shuddering, I turn away from those thoughts. Rabishu-sama will probably wake up within a few minutes and it won't help to mope around; if he is going to punish me, I will accept it because I deserve it, but now I can't do anything, so I retreat to the center of the sparring room, trying to remember as many techniques as I can. 

But my mind is so empty, I hardly remember how to block, and that small bit only because I have been practicing it together with Rabishu-sama, who is still lying motionlessly on the floor. My reflexes are so terribly fast, I will have to learn how to control them, otherwise I could seriously hurt somebody who doesn't deserve it. Just like I have hurt Rabishu-sama.

Angry and displeased with myself, I extend a fist as if to punch an unseen opponent, laying my full trust into my instincts to keep me from hurting myself or making a mistake. At first, it feels really awkward punching into thin air like a madman, but my body is gradually remembering what my mind does not remember, and it is dancing, turning, twisting in intricate patterns. After a while, I recognize moves which are being repeated, and I only have to consciously perform a certain kick or punch for the pattern to be recalled. I still don't know how exactly those patterns are going to effect an opponent, but at least I am getting some insight into which moves my body can perform and how much stamina I have.

----------

Groaning, Rabishu shook his head to get rid of the ringing in his ears. That had really been an interesting attack the brat had pulled; he hadn't known that Saiya-jin were able to electrically charge their fists. He had heard of the technique before, but had never actually seen anybody perform it. Luckily, the chibi had not put a lot of power behind it, so Rabishu was just knocked out instead of having his brain fried. Still, he had one heck of a bad headache. 

Hearing whooshing sounds and feeling the shockwaves of somebody powerful training, he decided to open his eyes, only to see nobody. The whole room was empty, but he could still hear a presence. It was probably just moving too fast for him to spot, but that was quite a feat considering that his eyes could follow speeds of people approximately ten times more powerful than him. Finally reaching out with his senses, he almost choked on the waves of a huge _ki_ that had peaked at considerably more than 5000 for a split second. No wonder that he didn't see whomever was training in here, the person was far too fast for him. Only Elites had such a power, but why would an Elite train in a room occupied by a third-class Ueisutodamupu-jin?

Just then, the _ki_ plummeted down to rest at 1000, and Bardoku appeared in front of him out of thin air. That had been Bardoku? He clearly was the only Saiya-jin in this room, and Rabishu's senses usually were correct, so the eleven year old youngster had a maximum power level of 5000. Where the hell did Bardoku get that much power from, that was impossibly high. Prince Vegeta was the only eleven year old on the planet with a power of more than 2000, and that was considerably more than most first-class had. Heck, even the king's _ki_-level was not much higher than 8000, so perhaps all of that had been a fluke. The smiling boy in front of him could never have such a high power level.

"Hey, you are awake! Did I hurt you badly?"

The guilt that lay thickly on the kid's trembling voice made him perk up and concerned him deeply. That was definitely not good, no fighter apologized for hurting somebody. He would have to snap the boy out of his misplaced guilt trip as soon as possible, otherwise the chibi would always have a serious disadvantage when waging a battle. Roughly, he chided Bardoku.

"You are a warrior, and warriors have to hurt other people in order to win a fight, so you can't feel guilty after every punch. Got that?"

The boy just stared at him with clear evidence on his features that the wheels in his mind were frantically turning. Many emotions played on his youthful face that was marred by some deep scars. What kind of twisted personality was able to hurt a small child so badly that it would forever bear countless crisscrossing marks? Finally, the boy submissively cast his soft black eyes downwards and mumbled:

"Hai, Rabishu-sama."

Not wanting to think about Bardoku's desolate expression, he started attacking without any forewarning. After throwing some hard punches and jabs, he realized that none of them had made contact. The boy just evaded his blows with apparent ease, not even raising a hand to block, and Rabishu got frustrated, shouting at Bardoku:

"What did I just tell you? You have to fight back, you can't always run away!"

Growling menacingly, Rabishu powered up completely and let a merciless hail of blows and kicks rain down on Bardoku. The boy still wasn't fighting back, but at least he was blocking with amazing strength. Always trying to find a hole in the chibi's tight defenses, he was surprised when the boy suddenly left his whole left side wide open. 

Not missing the opportunity, Rabishu wanted to throw a wicked left hook towards the unguarded spot – only to find out that the presumably defenseless opening had been a mere setup. The boy was suddenly grabbing his wrist millimeters before it would have made contact, and Bardoku let himself fall backwards, planting his feet right in Rabishu's stomach. 

Bardoku seemed to be at least as astonished about his sudden attack as Rabishu, but Rabishu didn't want to give him time to think about what he had done, and attacked even more furiously. Slowly, the boy became a more active participant in the fight; at first reluctantly, but getting more and more involved as his Saiyan blood began to sing in the ancient war hymn that had already been driving each one of his ancestors dating back to the very first Saiya-jin of Vegeta-sei. 

The boy had an amazing style he had never seen before. Part of it was the Saiyan strength and roughness, but the greatest part was utterly alien to Rabishu who prided himself on knowing more attacks than almost anybody else on this planet. Barduku was performing some very refined and cunning _katas_ which counted a lot on swiftness and agility, but he also had some very powerful punches and kicks which could destroy mountains in store. It looked like the combination of the best elements of several different styles, and that kind of diversity at such a young age was truly remarkable.

So far, the boy hadn't been using _ki_ except for flying, hovering, and that one charge of his hands; but that was not necessary, as it was apparent that the boy was by far the stronger fighter, and his complex moves rivaled the level of techniques the Ueisutodamupu-jin was using.

After almost an hour, Rabishu was starting to feel winded, and the boy's accurate hits were affecting him more and more; whereas his opponent wasn't even breathing harder or starting to sweat. An especially powerful punch caught him in the ribs and the following dropkick almost cracked one of his bones. All air was forced out of his lungs by that vicious blow, and he momentarily lost control over his _ki_ which was holding him suspended in the air about twelve feet high. He plummeted down towards the floor like a comet streaking through the sky and connected with a loud thud, face first. Before he even had time to think about getting up again though, the boy was already sitting on his back, straddling his waist, securing his arms behind his back, and smirking gleefully:

"You lost!"

Shaking his head in disbelieve, Rabishu struggled for a while but never made any progress. But when he was completely depleted of his remaining strength, he finally had to accept his defeat. An instant after his submission, the weight on his back vanished and Rabishu slowly got up, massaging his arms where bruises were starting to for from the tight hold Bardoku had had them in. Studying the happy boy who was still full of energy, he shook his head yet again. Then, he headed for the exit of the sparring room, calling over his shoulder.

"Yes, you are much stronger than me. Now we are going to see how well you are going to fare at the obstacle course where you should learn some more about your reflexes and which should pose a little bit more of a challenge to you."

The child trotted faithfully behind him through some dark, secluded hallways into a truly gigantic hall which had no roof and was brightly lighted by the sun. It was at least 20 times as big as the sparring room they had been in, and the kid's eyes were full of awe when they appeared right in the middle. A huge oval of more than 300 yards in diameter and 500 yards in length was lined on both sides by clear walls that were shooting random energy rays on the track. Excitedly, Bardoku ran to the transparent walls and started watching fighters dart more or less skillfully through the course. 

Smiling to himself, Rabishu put one hand on the child's shoulder and steered him towards the line that was forming at the entry. They had to wait for a few minutes, then it was their turn. When the Ueisutodamupu-jin demanded eight laps for Bardoku, the supervisor looked at him strangely as even adult warriors hardly demanded more than five laps; but nevertheless, he scanned the child's chip without complain and Rabishu let Bardoku in. Immediately, the boy was surrounded by blasts, but he easily dodged each and every one of them, proceeding very fast.

Rabishu just retreated to the middle and watched the child through the clear plastic walls. The scanning of the chip was a necessary measure of precaution in case a warrior got hurt so badly that he couldn't make his way to the exit again. Then, a program would be activated to hinder the lasers from firing on the fallen fighter and the supervisor could go in and get the person to the next regen-tank; but the boy didn't need such safety precautions as he was obviously above the level of the obstacle course.

That child certainly was an interesting phenomena, Bardoku was now on his seventh lap and had yet to be hit. Rabishu was quite sure that that was a new record, but to top it off, the child was not even panting very hard and dodging every energy ray with plenty of time to spare. The strangest thing was that his _ki_ seemed not to dwindle, his power-level remained at a constant 1000. Now, for the eighth round, Bardoku even closed his eyes, relying completely on his _ki_-sensing ability and his other senses. Still, he wasn't hit.

By now, countless astonished Saiya-jin were lining the walls of the obstacle course, all watching the strange boy who was completing it with closed eyes and a smile on his face without getting hit by any of the rapidly firing lasers. Hushed murmurs were passing around at how such a young child could have such a level of strength and skill, and some were even suggesting that the boy might become the next Super Saiya-jin. 

Rabishu decided that it was enough physical training for today, so he quickly spiked his _ki_ to see if he could get the attention of the boy. Surely enough, Bardoku turned in his direction, and Rabishu waved his hand, signaling for the boy to come here. A blast was approaching from behind the boy's back while he still was facing Rabishu, but Bardoku swiveled around so fast that you couldn't see the movement at all and deflected the energy with ease. The chibi seemed to have gotten the message as he quickly exited the course and landed in front of Rabishu. Together, they quietly walked out of the room, leaving some thoroughly surprised Saiya-jin behind.

----------

Why were all those Saiya-jin they looking at me so strangely? Have they never seen anyone fly the obstacle course before? And why were they whispering amongst themselves? Did they think I couldn't hear them talking about some strange thing like Super Saiya-jin? I am not one of those, am I?

Pondering those questions, I silently follow Rabishu-sama to one of the meditation chambers where the floor is covered with a soft, white rug that feels very comfortable. We both settle down on the ground in the lotus position and face each other. He is giving me no instructions, so I think he just wants to see what I am going to do. I can't recall ever having meditated before, but that doesn't say anything; after all, I didn't remember how to fight, either. I guess, I will just have to try.

Not knowing how to start, I focus on my steady breathing.

Breathe in.

And out.

And in.

And out.

Slowly, I am sinking deeper; the air flowing rhythmically in and out of my lungs is filling the whole world with a steady, soothing rushing. Together with the sound of my heart beat and the blood streaming through my veins, it combines to the harmony of my body. This strange music doesn't distract me though, it rather makes me more aware of everything that is going on around me. I feel as if I was part of everything, knowing even the smallest life forms. 

Focusing more on them, I can distinguish all the different life forces, which appear to me like a steady glow from each of them. Some are glowing brighter, some are not so bright, and one that shines like a sun is sitting directly in front of me. My instincts tell me that that is the _ki_ of Rabishu-sama.

Carefully, I _reach out_ and _touch_ his bright light. Where my 'hand' makes contact with the surprisingly hard, glowing surface, the light dims a little bit and takes on a reddish hue, but nothing else happens. Suddenly, a pleasant voice starts talking in my mind, which has to be Rabishu-sama by default.

'Very well done. Now, before you try getting into my brain again, try to shield your own thoughts like I have shielded mine.' 

I study the glowing surface in front of me. So that is only a shield. Looking back at my mental image, I can immediately spot the difference. While Rabishu-sama's exterior is a completely symmetric, hard, and a steadily glowing sphere, my mind is pulsing, changing, and flickering like a fire. And just like an uncontrolled fire, it can become a danger to myself and everybody else.

Gathering my concentration, I draw the flames around me and start binding them, building a hard brick wall around the fire so that it can't escape again. It is a very strenuous activity, because just when I think I have finished my task, another hole which I thought I had already mended suddenly pops up in another place. But finally, I have shielded my thoughts, and the dangerous flames are confined behind the wall.

Looking at my accomplishment, I am surprised that I can't see my mental image any more, I just know that it has to be there. It seems that my brick wall not only shields my thoughts but also hides my glow which stands for my _ki_. That could be of infinite value in battle because I still feel as if I could access it.

Turning back towards Rabishu-sama, I _touch_ his mind again. I am thoroughly surprised that this time I cannot feel any resistance from his shield. My 'hand' is passing straight through, and soon I can see the flame that represents his thoughts. _Reaching out_, I make contact with him.

'Is that better?' 

The flame shrinks away from me and I can feel a deep confusion emanating from the fire. I have to smile. 

'Don't worry, I have only hidden myself so that I don't broadcast anything. What am I supposed to do now?' 

Slowly, the flame is approaching me again and licking at my foreign essence, but not burning me. After wondering for a while, I realize that Rabishu-sama is trying to communicate with me, but I am blocking him completely. Sheepishly, I open a tiny slit in my defenses, and now I can understand him.

'Not bad. That will be enough for today, though. Return to your body and keep the shield up.' 

Retreating behind my brick wall, I can hear the soft rushing again. After concentrating on it for a while, I can feel the breathing in and the breathing out, my slow and steady heart beat, the blood flowing through my veins; and gradually, the rest of my body is returning. 

I feel as if I had just returned from a place deep under the ocean, and I try to treasure the serene and peaceful emotions. Then, after checking if the brick wall is still in place, I open my eyes to find Rabishu-sama studying me intently. Seeing that I am back, he only nods and gets up.

Wincing a little bit over my stiff knees, I follow him outside. Just how long have I been meditating? When we had exited the obstacle course, the pale blue sun had been high over our heads, but now it is almost touching the horizon. And as if that wasn't proof enough of the passing time, my stomach decides to start complaining, demanding something edible.

We are silently walking back to the registration office, lost in our thoughts, not caring about the few people that are still on the streets, only stopping to get some peculiar vegetables and some unidentifiable meat on the way home at a small stand that is still opened.

Arriving at his apartment over the registration office, Rabishu-sama is cooking a big meal that sates both of our appetites, then he tells me that I can sleep in the room with the brown couch again if I want to. I nod and take the thin blanket he is handing me, thanking him gratefully.

Trotting to the registration room that is now my sleeping room, I realize that I am not tired yet at all, but nevertheless, I go to bed immediately. Lying with open eyes on the couch, I think about everything I have 'learned' today. 

I am a trained warrior, that much is obvious, and apparently I am much stronger than anybody else. I don't think I have even used a small fraction of my _ki_ today, but everybody already thinks me powerful. How in the world did I gain so much energy; judging by what they have said it should be impossible. Is it part of the reason why I had to lock my mind away behind that impenetrable barrier? Is it part of the reason for the pain and the hurt behind the barrier?

Eventually, many hours into the night, I am fed up with my thoughts turning round and round, and I repeat the breathing exercise, but not to the point where my focus would turn completely inwards. Within a few minutes later, I am calmed down enough, and my thoughts have stopped their mad spiraling. In no time the velvet blackness of sleep is creeping over me and snuffs out my consciousness like a candle despite my halfhearted resistance, throwing me into a restless, dark void filled with fitful dreams.

A/N: I know, this chapter isn't that great, it has little to no angst, and I suppose it is plainly boring. But I still wouldn't mind if you could review, I desperately need some inspiration for the next chapter.


	8. Tournament

A/N: Thank you for all the great reviews! I feel really special that I have only received positive reviews so far, no flames at all. 

I told you I couldn't update as fast anymore because I want to wait until I have at least 5000 words before I post the new chapter. But, finally, this chapter is done and I already have big parts of the next chapter, so look forward to a lot of angst and torture, soon!!!

To stupid kid 04, blah, ldkfj(Huh?) and series: Are you related to each other by any chance? That sounded a lot like me and my brother arguing... Anyways, thanks a lot!

To A-man: hope that answers your question!

To blue-dove7: Thanks, I needed that. I tried to get some more mental aspects in there this chapter, but I don't know if I succeeded. Anyways, next chapter is going to deal with a lot of mental aspects, so look forwards to it!

To ivy: Sometimes, I hate my own computer, too. Sorry that I couldn't update any faster, but I had such a big writer's block that I was actually thinking about never continuing this story. I'm glad that I am over it. And, no, I am not going to stop Gohan torture anytime soon, I like it too much. There was just no chance for that in this chapter, but soon there is going to be plenty of angst and torture #grins evilly#. And keep your eyes open for the next chapter, it is coming soon!! 

To a dark mind: wow, you've got a lot of questions! Firstly, what part of his strength are you talking about? Naturally, Gohan is stronger than any other Saiya-jin because he is able to go all the way up to SSJ 2. Of course, with all the near-death-experiences, his strength has been boosted tremendously, but he doesn't know that yet. He is only eleven because I go by the manga which has him fight Cell at the age of 9 (I like the mange way better than the anime), so sorry for the confusion. Nope, Denna has done nothing to General Marduku, and the rest of your questions should be answered in this chapter (except for the one with registering Gohan's strength, I am going to think about that). And if you have more questions: I'd love to answer them. It is reviews like yours that keep me going (read A/N at the beginning and the answer to ivy to see how close I was to discontinuing...), so keep them up!!!

To c-bear: WAAHHHH!!! I DON'T WANT TO BE FRIED!!!!! Ehrm, I completely agree with you that he can't hide forever, he is going to come out soon together with a whole new lot of angst and torture!!!

To afunai saru: who do we have here? Somebody who does not do his project during internet class? I am glad you didn't do it, I just love getting reviews too much. And what happened between Gohan and Denna should be partially cleared in this chapter, but the next few are going to give even more insight.

To smfandonja: What do you mean by writing in the third person? All characters (except for Gohan) are written in third person style, just check the first chapter, and in the following ones the parts about Marduku and Denna, they are all third person view. I am really glad that you like my writing style so much, I am not very sure about my skills as an author. The question about Vegeta-sei is answered in this chapter.

To twain-faces: sorry for the delay, for more info read the A/N at the beginning and the review to ivy!

Tournament

Over the past few days, some sort of routine has been established. 

I would wake up from the very same nightmare that has been haunting me ever since the regen-tank and I would lay there panting for a while, trying to calm my fluttering, racing, jumping heart to a normal level and to loose the adrenaline surging through my veins. I am fighting to keep my mental barriers so tight that none of the fear and the anguish spills over to the Ueisutodamupu-jin. 

Just when I would be relaxed enough to go back to sleep, Rabishu-sama comes in and tells me to get up as the light blue sun is starting to rise over the horizon. He never says anything about my sleep-deprived appearance but mutely glances at me with a worried expression. I know that I have to get some rest, but I am afraid of those nightmares that come back and haunt me every time I am not on the watch. 

We would eat a hearty breakfast, then Rabishu-sama works his eight-hour-shift in the registration office while I am training in the center. Alone. Fighting shadows to try to improve my abilities. Getting familiar with my own body again. Remembering old, long forgotten skills. Inventing new moves that include my tail.

Sometimes during my training, Rabishu-sama would contact me unexpectedly with his mind to see if I have my guard up, and we would engage in a short mental spar which I usually win. Otherwise, I am completely alone here in the training center. I practice my attacks for endless hours, always amazed at the bottomless strength my body possessed.

I still don't know my maximum power level because I have never gone all out. After the incident with the broken scouter which I had borrowed from Rabishu-sama to see how well I could hide and suppress my _ki_, I have never tried it again. I had only started powering up, when the digits of the display had shot up tremendously. The scouter went up to 15 000 and then it simply exploded from overload.

Luckily, I have been able to convince the few people who had found out that I was the reason for all the exploding scouters in a three-mile-radius that it had been a fluke; and that I had been tampering with my scouter to send out some electronic waves that would destroy all complicated chips. I think my argumentation was quite flawed because I received some doubting looks, but they swallowed what I told them. 

When Rabishu-sama got wind of the stunt I pulled, he was quite astonished and hasn't even scolded me for breaking his scouter yet. Now, I am always hiding my power level so that I can't be detected by anybody and can't make scouters explode because of my immense _ki_.

After Rabishu-sama's shift is over, he would come to the training center, and then we would spar a little and then meditate. He has taught me how to have full control over my telepathy, and I am beginning to understand the reasons for the body-switching. It is just some advanced form of telepathy where I cannot only read thoughts but also control all bodily functions of my 'host'. The pain comes from the fact that I have to cut all connections to my body first, and the agony is only a protective reaction of the brain. In times of great need, this ability seems to be called on out of instinct and necessity, and I cannot control it – yet. But I am working on it.

One time, on the third day, Rabishu-sama had started another attempt to break the barrier, but it was as unsuccessful as the first one. I had tried to keep my reflexes in check and my defenses down, but there had been a point where the horror had become too deep, where the fright had overwhelmed me, and I had thrown Rabishu-sama out yet again. 

Since then he hasn't tried it again, but sometimes I can hear him muttering about needing more telepaths to have some neutralize my defenses while the others provide more strength for the attack on the barrier. Every time I hear this, a could shudder chills down my spine, and I am really glad that he has never mentioned this possibility to me openly.

On the fifth day, General Marduku had returned and had demanded a spar with me. I happily complied, and we were been fighting for hours. To Marduku's surprise, I had always kept the upper hand, even when the general played his maximum strength, which didn't really pose a challenge to me.

I don't think anybody has even the slightest hunch of an idea of the vastness of my power, and so everybody thought my victory over General Marduku to be an astonishing feat. But I didn't even use a fraction of my full power because I didn't want the spar to end early. Even then, I beat General Marduku pretty badly with only starting to work up a sweat myself. 

Grumbling over his defeat, Marduku had sworn to come back the next day to get some revenge on the 'insolent brat that dared to defeat him'. Does he know how futile this attempt is? As he was unsuccessful each and every time, it has become a habit that we train together during Rabishu-sama's eight-hour shift, and afterwards, I would only do some mental exercises with the Ueisutodamupu-jin.

But today, everything is turned upside down. Why has General Marduku not come yet for our daily spar? Usually, he is already waiting and ready to spar with me as soon as I enter the training room, but today, I haven't been greeted by the surprise attack that would normally initiate our fight. Where is Marduku? I hope he is ok. If I just knew what had happened to him...

What should, or could, keep me from looking for him? 

Ehr, not that good of an idea. I don't think he would take kindly to it if I appeared right in front of him; for the past few days, he has been trying to teach me the ways of a battle-hardened Saiyan warrior, and Saiyan warriors don't worry about anybody. 

But nobody has said that I was not allowed to feel out for his power level or his thoughts. Probably because the question has never risen; after all, Marduku doesn't know of my _ki_-sensing or telepathic abilities. I have been itching for an opportunity to test the range of my abilities with somebody else than Rabishu-sama, and this is exactly what I was looking for.

Quickly retreating to a meditation room, I sit down in a lotus position and focus my thoughts outwards. I don't even need the breathing exercise any more, and in no time, I can sense all the different people around me, and their shier number is overwhelming. But there are no power levels over a thousand in the training center. Usually, there would be at least two or three Elites training in here, but today, there are none. Where did all of them go?

Opening my senses further, I stretch out my mind. First, I expand to monitor the city, and there are no high _ki_s either. Has something happened? Getting more and more nervous, I start looking around frantically for anybody above 1000. Reaching further and further out, I can suddenly pick up all the strong power levels of the planet in one spot. What is going on there to have all Elites gathered together in one place? 

Examining their different _ki_-levels closer, I discover that Marduku is amongst them, and surprisingly, he is one of the strongest of them. I haven't paid that much attention to other power levels so far, and it really astonishes me how strong Marduku is in comparison to others. He is only second to two much higher power levels that are quite close to 8 000, presumably the king and his son.

But that still hasn't answered the question why they are there. Quickly checking their surface thoughts without invading their privacy, I can gather some fragments about fighting, a tournament, and Prince Vegeta. That sounds slightly familiar, I just don't know where I have heard that before. Did General Marduku tell me anything about it?

Digging in my memory, I can faintly recall an announcement of the comdio about some tournament to find out who will get to train Prince Vegeta. 

"Attention all warriors, in a ten-day there will be a tournament to find a worthy trainer for Prince Vegeta. The winner of the tournament will have to fight against King Vegeta, and depending on his performance, he will get to train the prince in the art of fighting. Good luck to all you warriors out there. May the house of Vegeta-Sei always be victorious!"

I am surprised that I can still remember the exact words, but as it was the first words I have heard in Saiyango, it is little wonder I do. 

Have already ten days passed since my arrival? I can't believe it! Time just seems to fly by. And so far, I have not seen very much of the planet, just the training center, two white towns from the air, and the Crimson Desert. I'd love to go, I could learn more about the environment, the scenery, the planet, and watch the fighters competing; perhaps I can even pick up some new techniques.

Contacting Rabishu-sama who is not very happy at my intrusion, I ask permission to watch the tournament; and when he gruffly allows me to go, I am overjoyed. Running out of the training center, I jump into the blazing purple sky and blast towards where I can pick up all the energy signatures. 

From my perspective, I fly agonizingly slow, but it wouldn't be very clever to emit a power level of several thousand, it would only draw unwanted attention; and even with hiding my _ki_, I can't power up any further than 10 000 without being detected.

Soon, I have left the town and the bluish-purple river lined by lush vegetation behind, and now I am blasting over fiery, hot, red sand which has been heated by the blazing purple star that is burning down on me almost vertically. The Crimson Desert is really endless, it stretches as far as my eyes can see, no change in it except for the pattern the wind has left on the dunes. Is this huge sandpit never going to end? Does it cover the entire planet?

Always homing on the warriors, I fly towards them in a bee-line, but I am so slow. From the fluctuations of several power levels, I can gather that they have already started the tournament, and I am still a quarter of the planet away from them. Growling, I put up as much speed as I dare to, and hope that I won't be too late.

----------

She was trembling inwardly and sweating profusely, and she was afraid of what HE would do to her. She had failed her mission, and now the boy was god knows where. HE would surely not be happy about her failure, and HIS power was so great that HE could do with her whatever HE wanted. But outwardly, none of her fears showed, she looked as calm as a rock, only the dull glimmer in her starling blue eyes gave away that she was not as composed as she seemed.

Nervously running her hand down on her tight blond braid, she swallowed hard and pressed open the big wooden door that had intricate patterns carved on it. Immediately, she knelt on the floor to honor the small humanoid male that was revealed, not daring to look at HIM directly, and spoke in a lifeless voice free of all emotion.

"My Lord, the boy has escaped and is no longer in my range."

Awaiting the punishment that was bound to come, she kept her eyes lowered to the floor, but none came. Still, she dared not to get up, so she waited. Perhaps that was just some new method of punishment of HIM.

After a few minutes, the person in the scarcely furnished room finally addressed her with a soothing, but powerful baritone.

"I know. Although you are only partially to blame for it, you shouldn't have let him escape. Come here, Denna."

Gracefully, she got up and neared HIS torso. HE was an old, wrinkled man whose head was bald from age, and he was shrouded in long, purple robes. HE was hunched over tiredly, but HIS silver-specked eyes still glinted very much awake and showed that HE was by no means the old doddery grandfather HE seemed to be.

When she stood next to HIM, towering over HIM with almost two heads difference, she felt as small and unimportant as an insect next to HIM despite her height. HIS whole figure exuded power and wisdom so far beyond any human abilities that HE didn't seem human anymore, not even like a living being. 

HE was a god. 

HIS small, wrinkly fingers only lightly brushed her with a feathery touch, but that was more than enough to send fearful shivers up her spine. No, HE would not need to punish her, being in HIS presence was hard enough. She knew that HE read her every thought, and that HE was well aware of her emotions towards HIM, but she couldn't force herself to be calm in the face of HIS power.

HE stared at her with those strange eyes, looking through her, weighing her, bearing down towards her core, revealing her innermost being. Just when she thought, she couldn't bear the gaze any longer, HE averted HIS eyes and slowly shuffled over to a cushioned chair, the only furniture except for a plain ebony desk that was loaded with papers. 

HE heavily sat down and seemed to think about what HE was willing to tell her. Finally, HE focused HIS silvery pupils on her again and started slowly with many pauses, showing how tired HE was in reality.

"I am not going to punish you. You have suffered enough in your life. Perhaps I should have told you some more about the boy and his race. Then that would not have happened. By biting him you have triggered one of his race's instincts to telepathically bond with a person, usually reserved for the first step of mating so that the future couple would get to know each other as well as themselves. 

"That was not supposed to happen, but he managed to deal with it. He even stayed sane when you showed your memories to him and let him experience all painful details of your training first hand. This speaks for great strength of character, the very thing the test is supposed to show, so I didn't say anything.

"But then, when you started drawing out his fears, warping them, and then presenting them back towards him, you inflicted so much pain on the boy that he was forced to invent a new method to close his mind off so that he would be able to keep his sanity. Unfortunately, you also triggered one of his instincts and awakened his ability to teleport through time and space, and now he is on planet Vegeta-sei – 120 years ago. I have not stopped this test yet, because those events have not changed the results, they have merely delayed their arrival.

"As for the future: You as a Mord-Sith are supposed to try to break candidates to test them for strength of character. But if they should not break under the Agiel, you should immediately send them to me the next time. Don't try any other methods, I am actually glad if somebody makes it through the first test. Although I doubt there will be a next time. The boy is very good. Maybe he is the right one..."

----------

General Marduku was thoroughly surprised at how well he was faring against his opponents. None of them were even close to the level of skill and perfection the boy had, and he could easily sidestep their simple _kata_s. The training with Bardoku had helped him increase his fighting abilities and his speed tremendously; although at first, he had thought it would be the other way round, that he would have to teach the boy how to fight. 

But the very first training session had rudely awakened him from his false believes, as the brat had effortlessly beaten him. And, thinking back, he was quite sure that Bardoku had never used his full strength. The more power Marduku had displayed the more power the boy put out, easily keeping up with the general, always beating him. Prince Vegeta was also stronger than him, but in the few matches they had had, the prince had always gone for a quick victory with crude but powerful attacks and had left Marduku injured so badly that he would have to use a regen-tank.

That in itself was very strange. Bardoku had never beaten him so brutally, seemingly always knowing how much force he could pack behind his punches to keep bones from breaking. Marduku had often admonished the brat that with only tapping the other's body, he would never defeat an opponent, but Bardoku always ignored his scolding. One time, the brat had been fed up with his constant nagging, and he had showed Marduku what mere taps could do without leaving any traces. 

In a quick succession of short stabs with pointed fingers, Bardoku had hit several pressure points, and suddenly the general had been paralyzed from the neck down. After the numbness had worn off, Marduku had never said anything in that subject area again, he had too preoccupied by marveling over Bardoku's abilities. The kid was unbelievably skilled, not only power-wise, but also his vast knowledge of techniques was incomprehensible to Marduku. For heaven's sake, the brat was not even in his teens and was already such a perfect warrior, and all the other fighters here seemed like ungifted toddlers in comparison to Barduku. Including himself.

He had let his thoughts wander, but his guard had not been dropped. Blocking with ease a huge fist that was aiming for his stomach, he decided to end the match quickly and simply knocked his opponent out with a single controlled kick to the side of the head. The whole tournament had been ridiculously easy so far. He was already in the semi-finals and hadn't had a decent challenge yet. Maybe he had just been lucky.

Suddenly, he his eyes to the sky, checking it for any sign of danger. Normally, he couldn't sense _ki_ energy, but a level as high as this one could be felt as a constant itch deep in his bones. There, at the horizon, a small speck appeared and approached the tournament ring so fast that his eyes almost couldn't follow it. 

When it arrived less than a second after he had detected it, Marduku couldn't believe his eyes. A few yards in front of him, there stood a small boy clad in black spandex and black armor with a red rim. His young face was marred by countless scars, and he clearly was a Saiya-jin. Identifying the child as Bardoku, he shook his head. 

He didn't even want to ask how the kid had ended up here of all places because he could figure the reasons. The brat had been worrying and was checking on him. When would the kid finally learn that Saiyan warriors did not care about each other? Luckily for Marduku, the brat wasn't allowed to compete as he was not registered yet, otherwise the tournament would be over with all too soon.

Bardoku grinned happily at him, and waved his hands. Marduku shook his head again, turned away from the brat and prepared for the last match. Floating up to the elevated ring for the finals, he was confronted with a huge, thoroughly muscled giant who looked as if he could easily break necks with his fingers. His clothing was minimal, showing off the unhealthy amount of muscles that were rippling with each movement, and his small, pig-like eyes harbored a malicious glint. 

Was this his opponent for the last round? He would have to be very careful to not get caught in a bear-hug of those arms that were as thick as a log. Marduku also would have to watch out for any sneak attacks, the brute confronting him seemed capable of anything.

Focusing completely on his rival, he noticed only at the edge of his vision that Bardoku had landed amongst the crowd that had gathered around the fighting ring. The rules said no touching the ground out of the ring, no deliberate firing at the spectators, and no destruction of buildings. Otherwise everything was allowed, even kicks below the belt and other dirty fighting tricks.

Then, the king hit the gong to initiate the fight. Immediately, he was assaulted by a flurry of fists and feet which he had quite a difficult time with blocking. Then, he got a steel hard elbow in his stomach and he fell to the floor, spitting out some blood. Marduku's opponent was even better than he had anticipated, he was strong and fast, and the general would have to give his best and even more if he wanted to have a chance at winning.

He faked to be hurt worse than he actually was, clutching his stomach in mock pain; and he used the cover to hide the fact that he was gathering strength for a deadly energy blast in his palms. Letting his enemy come closer to make him think he could deliver the finishing blow, Marduku suddenly jumped up and fired a huge beam at the unsuspecting giant from closest range.

But this did not seem to have any effect at all, if anything it made his opponent angrier. They engaged again in fierce hand-to-hand-combat faster than most eyes could see. Block – block – punch – block – dodge – kick, a never-ending rhythmical, beautiful but deadly dance. Marduku had a slight advantage being the faster one of the two, but the giant countered it by using all possible and impossible dirty tricks.

In a fraction of being slightly distracted, Marduku found himself caught in a brutal headlock that was slowly suffocating him. Struggling in vain, he tried everything he knew of to get out beneath the arms that were as big and strong as a tree trunk. His sight was growing darker at the edges of his vision and he felt himself get light-headed. The fight couldn't be ending now, could it?

He was running short on oxygen, but so far none of his techniques had worked. He had only managed to strain several muscles in his neck and to spend a great amount of his remaining energy. Through the roaring of the heartbeat in his ears, he thought he could faintly hear a familiar voice shout something like:

"Remember yesterday!"

That was Bardoku's voice, so it was supposed to help Marduku. Not hesitating, he took the cue and thought back. What had happened yesterday? They had been sparring all day long, and he had managed to catch the boy in a head-lock like the one he was in at the moment. But how had the brat gotten out of it? All he knew was that he had been holding the boy one moment, and the next moment he was thrown back in a heated explosion.

That was it! The boy had suddenly powered up and forced his _ki_ out of his body in a split second, thus making Marduku loose his grip on the boy and blowing him away. Marduku did not have that much of energy left, but perhaps he could at least use it to slip out of the tight grip.

He pretended to get weaker and quit his struggling. When he finally felt the giant gloat with the anticipation of winning the match and thus relaxing his guard, Marduku was dangerously close to unconsciousness. With a yell, he ignited an aura around him, and for a split second, the brute was surprised. That was more than he needed though, and he easily slipped out of the headlock. Quickly regaining his breath, he started attacking. The battle was on again.

They were fighting so powerfully that the air visibly rippled where their iron hard fists met steely flesh, and each time, a loud bang was heard. They were fighting so fast that every punch and every kick broke the sound barrier, and each time, a sonic boom was heard. The viewers only looked up in confusion, many couldn't even see the fight any more, it was so fast. And the very few who could follow the two warriors were wondering about where the style General Marduku fought in, had come from as it clearly was not Saiyan.

Subconsciously, the general had adapted some of Bardoku's fighting techniques; and now, he was using them to his advantage against his opponent who only knew the Saiyan ways. Marduku did not let his attention wander, and slowly, he was gaining the upper hand. With his speed, he was able to toy around with his opponent, and finally, he could perform a mighty throw, slamming the heavily muscled body into the ground below, out of the ring, and thus winning the fight.

Exhausted, he hung in the air, enjoying the thunderous applause, not paying attention to his defeated opponent any more. That was a huge mistake that would almost cost his life. Not wanting to accept that he had been defeated, his enemy fired a huge mouth blast at Marduku's unguarded back which had enough power to kill the general.

Hearing the booing shouts from the enraged on-lookers, Marduku swiveled around to be confronted with the blazing red beam only a few meters away, much too close to react. He could only stare on in horror as the beam neared with high speed, not having enough time to think.

Then, he heard a loud, angry yell behind him that sounded something like "Kamahamaaaah", and a concentrated blue beam shot past him faster than he could detect, countering the mouth beam head on. His bones were itching, but he paid no mind to their complaints. Who was his savior? No Saiya-jin would have done that, so that left only one possibility.

Turning around again, he saw Bardoku floating right behind him with a very dangerous expression of fury on his young face. The kid's usually huge eyes had narrowed to two tiny slits and power was pouring from his whole body in waves of utterly destructive rage. Almost immediately, the blue attack stopped the mouth blast, slowly redirected it, and finally pushed it straight out of the atmosphere. Marduku could feel the cribbling in his bones that indicated a high _ki_, but when he was in no danger any more, it disappeared as fast as it had appeared, almost as if its owner had realized he was projecting such a high energy level.

----------

I am seething with anger at the brute that has attacked General Marduku's back after he had honestly been defeated by the general. How does that weakling dare to try to kill my friend? Gritting my teeth and clenching my fists, I try to keep myself under control so that I won't do anything I would regret later on. Struggling vainly, I attempt to lower my power level that has reacted to my anger. Almost as soon as the bald-head had gathered his energy for the sneak-attack, I have seen red and my power has shot up astronomically high. I just had enough self control to keep it from making the scouters explode.

Everybody is staring at me, even the muscled freak lying on the floor. That snaps me back enough to get my self control halfways into gear, and I hide my power. Touching down next to the bald-head, I set up a stony mask to hide my wrath and fury. My voice is icy cold and has a low, grinding growl to it that surprises even me.

"You are not going to do something like that again, understood?"

He just stares at me, not quite believing that a small boy is threatening him; then he regathers his wits and his dumbfounded expression turns into a wicked smirk. Even his voice is as slimy and sardonic as I have expected from a ruffian like him.

"And who is going to keep me from doing so?"

I obviously don't react like he suspected, as I am stepping closer to him while targeting him with a cruel smirk on my own that seems so familiar to me. Tracing a circle around him, my gaze never leaves his eyes that are following me. He has not attempted to get up yet, and I am towering over him, making me intimidating despite my lack of size. When the first doubts start showing up in his eyes, I lean down and whisper in his ear:

"ME..."

Still smirking, I turn around and walk away from him and the stunned crowd. Has he learnt his lesson that you should not attack people's backs, especially if they are stronger than you? 

I have almost expected this to happen, but I am still saddened when my body swirls around to bat a light purple energy blast away. The brute obviously hasn't learned anything, so this time I reflect the attack straight back at him, knocking him out with his own attack. Shaking my head at such stupidity, I retreat into the safety of the masses who are eyeing me warily.

Another loud gong ensues, and the crowd quiets down almost immediately. King Vegeta rises and proclaims General Marduku the victor of the tournament.

"You are currently the strongest Elite warrior alive on the planet. However, to become the trainer of my son, you also must prove your abilities in a fight against me, your king. Give your best and hope that you will survive."

Then he floats down into the ring, taking a flawless fighting stance across from General Marduku. The king has tall flame-like hair that is pointing straight into the air, and it is as black as the hair of all Saiya-jins. He is wearing a black body suit with a white armor where the royal crest is emblazoned in scarlet red on the back, and his whole frame is well-muscled. I am silently rooting for Marduku although I know he doesn't have a chance against the much more powerful king. He obviously knows that fact, too, but his stern face tells me that he is determined to give his best shot. I hope that he won't die...

Almost as soon as the gong is hit, they both are fighting viciously. The king who is about as tall as General Marduku is beating down on the general mercilessly, and within a few minutes, Marduku is laying in a bloody pulp outside of the ring, almost unconscious. The king merely wipes a small trickle of blood away from his mouth and looks down at the fallen warrior.

"Considering your energy loss from the tournament and the variety of techniques you know, you are a worthy trainer for my son Prince Vegeta. Tomorrow, exactly one hour after sunrise, you will start your duty in the palace."

Then, the king takes to the air, hovering up to an exact replica of himself that is only half his size. From his elevated point, he calls down to us:

"And you brat, I want you to accompany General Marduku to the palace tomorrow. I will have to find a proper punishment for you. I do not allow anybody interrupting fights."

The smaller copy of the king is sneering down at me because it is clear that I am the target of this whole speech. Only the word 'punishment' is already striking fear in my heart. What have I done wrong? Should I have let this bastard kill my friend when his back was turned? The fight was over at that point of time, so why does the king say I have interrupted it? I am thoroughly frightened and can only nod at the king to show that I have understood. 

The king furrows his eyebrows and glares at me, but I think he accepts this answer. Saying something to the small replica of him in a low voice, they take off to the bright purple sky, leaving a streak of their combined auras behind. Only now, I realize that this carbon copy had to have been the prince, but I am still too shell-shocked to have my brain functioning correctly. I don't even hear the murmurs and whispers of the Saiya-jin standing around me and when somebody lays his hand on my shoulder, I flinch in surprise. 

Whirling around, I am face to face with a limping and heavily bleeding general, and relax when he gently squeezes my shoulder. I let him steer me through the agitated crowd and I am really glad when we stop in a quiet room with a single regen-tank. General Marduku undresses himself painfully slow, and he winces more than once when broken bone ends are grinding together. Before he enters the healing tank, he addresses me for the first time today.

"Go home to the Ueisutodamupu-jin and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, I will come and get you, and you'll see that everything is going to work out. Don't worry about it, I think the king doesn't want to tell everybody that he is interested in you. After all, he has affirmed my victory in the fight, and if you had really interrupted he would have taken immediate measures. Perhaps he will give you some punishment to keep up appearances, but not a lot, so don't worry. You have done nothing wrong and he knows it."

Then, he nods to me as a good bye and switches the tank on. I watch the bubbly green liquid rise under the glass dome and cover his naked figure, then I leave the room to take to the blazing purple sky and fly home.

A/N: YEAH, I am finally back again!!!! So, what do you think about this chapter? It is still a filler, but I got to get the story-line going and I want to get Gohan away from Planet Vegeta as soon as possible. The next chapter is coming soon!!!


	9. Revelations

A/N: Well, that chapter didn't come out as fast as I hoped it would. I was too preoccupied doing my second story, Rebirth, which has Vegeta as main character. He is my other favorite character, so if you like him, too, have a look at it!

To ivy: *gulp * that was very graphic. I hope you let me live some more time, I AM TOO YOUNG TO DIE!!!!! Thx for the compliment, enjoy this chapter! 

To Twain_Faces: Thanks, but because of the fact that the plot has become clear, I have to end the story soon (you can't keep up suspension if the reader knows everything that is going on, and I am not able to start a second plot after this one). Be prepared that this story is going to be completed with the next chapter!

To smfandonja: oh, so you mean that I should write a whole story in 3rd person style? Perhaps some time later, because at the moment I like 1st person view better and I have no idea for another story. If you could give me some interesting plot, I can try to write one.

To cinnamin911: Thx! But what do you mean by keep reviewing? Please tell me, so that I can keep doing whatever you mean!

Revelations

I lay there thinking, pondering, turning the same things over and over in my mind. Why am I being summoned to the royal palace? Why does the king want to punish me? I know, Marduku has said that the punishment is only to hide the king's curiosity, but should I believe that? I mean, why can't the king admit freely to why he wants to see me? Is that some twisted extension of the 'Saiyan honor code' Marduku has tried to teach me? Is admitting also supposed to be a weakness, just like caring about others?

I am afraid of what is going to happen in the palace. I know, a warrior should be able to bear some punishment, but the word alone almost scares me out of my mind. It has something to do with the dark recess in the back of my brain, the one that can't be opened. My reactions to that dreaded word are uncontrollable from my side, my body does whatever it wants to. All my muscles tense up, my whole frame becomes rigid, I can't breathe properly any more, and my throat is constricting, making me gag and choke. Cold sweat breaks out all over my skin, and I feel hot and nauseous. My brain starts shutting off, and all my fear is turned towards the person that has uttered the word.

Surprisingly, this reaction is over almost immediately, and then followed by a strange submissiveness, like yesterday. General Marduku could have done with me whatever he wanted, and I would have gladly accepted it. I didn't put up any resistance to him guiding me away, and thinking back, it wasn't because I trusted General Marduku. It was because of that curious reaction following the sentence "I will punish you". That is the most scary thing. Just the right words will trigger reactions I can't control. I snort. An enemy could render me useless without fighting me, just by saying some words.

When I am in that submissive state, my conscious will is frozen, and it is infinitely hard to shake the paralysis off on my own. I would even look forward to being beaten senseless, perhaps because of some masochistic tendencies, perhaps because of something else. I don't know, but I am certain the answer lies within that enclosed space in my mind.

The person that had retreated behind that barrier has left me nothing else than countless dangerous reflexes, no memories and no reason. I should be angry at the other me now, but I can't. This haunting nightmare shows only a few minutes of his life, and it contains more horror than I can stomach. 

I feel pity for that tormented soul that has hidden itself deep within me, but I don't think, I would survive it if we were reunited. His memories, if they are as violent as those few I have seen, would destroy me just like they have destroyed him, and it is good that he has closed himself away. Otherwise we both might run around broken, haunted, and scarred for eternity.

Just looking at all the scars on my body, I know that remembering their history would drive me probably insane, they are so great in number and so would be the painful memories. It is good that the other me has gone, and I am willing to live with the few reflexes he has left me as long as I don't have to remember. Remembering would be deadly.

Through the tall windows, I can see that the sky is turning lighter from a pitch-black to a very dark purple. That means that the sun has almost risen over the horizon. My windows are facing to the west, so they are the last ones to reveal the oncoming morning. I should better get ready, Marduku said he was going to fetch me at the crack of dawn. 

I just wonder why he hasn't already paid me a visit. I can clearly feel his presence pacing back and force a few floors above me, right in Rabishu-sama's kitchen. The Ueisutodamupu-jin is also there, probably making breakfast. I wonder what they are talking about, but I know that it is very impolite to listen to thoughts of others. Additionally, Rabishu-sama has put up so many 'Keep Away'-shields around their minds that only somebody with absolutely no telepathic powers could overlook them.

Quickly, I wash my face with a handful of icy water that comes out of the only faucet on the first floor. It smells a little bit like the sand from the Crimson desert, but not so strong that it would make me gag. I return to my room and fold the blankets I have slept under neatly and lay them at the bottom of the couch like I do every morning. I slip in my armor that is lying besides my make-shift bed, and leisurely pace towards the entrance hall to wait for General Marduku.

A few minutes later, he appears with a scowl set on his face, waves for me to follow him, and then disappears quickly through the front door. Running after the pissed general, I strain to keep up with him, and soon, we are flying at top speed towards the rising sun. I admire the colorful spectacle that is playing at the horizon, the different hues of dark blue, purple, green and cyan, so magnificent colors that I can never have enough.

When General Marduku suddenly looses altitude, I would have almost lost him because I haven't paid attention to where we were going. We are over the same town again where I have had my chip implanted. No wonder the houses all looked so regal; after all, it is the city with the royal palace.

The marble-covered houses build an ocean of purple, green, and blue reflexes, and the streets wind through them like rivers of molten onyx. The sun has already started showing her pale blue head over the endless line of neither earth nor sky, and a cool breeze is playing with my hair. Everything is so quiet up here, only the whistling of the wind and the occasional tweet of a bird. I am not really sure if I am even awake.

We touch down in front of the most magnificent of all houses, a giant mansion that looks fit for a king. Guards that have a steady frown on their faces flank the huge blue portal which is decorated with the royal seal in crimson red. General Marduku halts in front of them and puts his right fist over his heart, right under the sign for Elite soldier. The guards bow and open the door, and we are allowed to enter. Behind us, the door slams shut with a loud clang, bringing me a feeling of doom. 

It takes only a short time to get used to the dim light inside, and I can see countless warriors and servants hustle around, all of them Saiya-jin. Marduku is guiding me through several hallways, many of them decorated with pictures of former kings. They all have the characteristic widow's peak and the flame-like hair that is pointing straight up; and they all scowl at whoever is looking at them. The Saiyan history seems to be quite a long one, because so far, no picture has repeated itself, and we must have passed at least 50 of them.

Finally, we arrive at what I think a throne room. On a slightly elevated part of the floor, there is the silhouette of a big throne outlined against the blue sunrays that fall through the window right behind the throne, lining it in a bright corona. Squinting my eyes that are starting to water, I see the General kneel on the floor with one leg, one fist over his heart, the other one to support him on the ground. Imitating his form, I also sink down quite uncomfortably, dropping on one knee. After a small eternity, I hear a sharp "Rise" from behind us. 

We silently get up, and Marduku flinches a little bit, but I have detected the big _ki_s early on. The king hadn't been on the throne at all, he had just entered silently from a door that probably leads to his quarters. Right behind him, an annoyed prince is following, mumbling some incoherent things about baka nannies.

The king and his son walk around us, facing us with the morning sun in their backs. I am lucky that the king is standing right in front of me, so his tall shadow keeps me from squinting against the bright light. I can feel his burning stare on me, and I dare not look up to the hot gaze. He seems to be in some inner turmoil, but nothing shows through his icy exterior.

"General Marduku!"

His voice hasn't lost any of its previous hardness and sharp tone, and it takes a lot of my willpower to not flinch at its harshness. He continues without waiting for the general to answer, giving instructions like somebody who has been used to commanding people for years.

"You are going to teach my son in the finer arts of war. I expect you to give a report on his progress every ten-day, and if I am convinced you go too easy on him, you will face the consequences. Understood?"

Marduku pounds his right fist on the chest plate and shouts: 

"Yes, Sir!"

Then he turns around and leaves the room, the prince trailing a few feet behind. The door closes behind them, leaving me alone together with the king. I know that the king can hardly harm me physically, but his stern presence is very intimidating. He circles me like a vulture waiting for me to drop dead on the floor.

"Why have you diverted the moth blast?"

His question is chilling, hiding a dangerous edge, and he is stalking me like a predator. I try to keep my voice steady and free of emotion, but I am not sure to what extent I succeed.

"The warrior's behavior was not acceptable, and I didn't want General Marduku to die a death brought on by dishonorable actions."

The king only nods at my answer and continues his stalking.

"Do you care for General Marduku?"

"He has saved me from certain death, so I owe him a life."

I hope this answer satisfies the king, but it is the best I could come up with in the short time.

"How old are you?"

This question really surprises me. What does my age have to do with the whole mess I am in? Shrugging my shoulders, I answer

"I don't know, Sire, General Marduku has found me in the Crimson Desert a ten-day ago, and I don't have any memories of the time before. I guess I am eleven or twelve."

That seems to surprise the king, I guess he didn't expect such a statement. He has stopped dead in his tracks, right behind me. I can feel his dark presence looming over me, and I have to force myself to stay calm and composed. A foreboding sense of uneasiness rests on my shoulders as the smooth but cold voice breathes down my neck.

"So you have lost your memories, huh? You are probably from off-world, too. Do you know our customs and our honor-code?"

I don't exactly know what to think of the king. His voice sounds harsh and icy, but his words are almost friendly. I know too little about Saiyan culture to decipher his antics; after all, the only two Saiya-jin I have met closer are the one who has comforted me after the healing tank, and General Marduku. I can feel that I am treading on dangerous ground, but I can't even see where the path ends and where the abyss begins, so I have to carefully feel my way around.

"General Marduku has been trying to teach me the Saiyan ways, but I have not quite understood them yet. I apologize if I have broken a rule."

The king only shakes his head – I don't know why. Have I said something wrong again?

"Saiya-jin are warriors, and warriors don't apologize. They take what is theirs and don't care about others. You must have been raised by a very weak race to have such useless morals, but at least you can fight. What is your power level?"

I quickly decide that I won't tell him about the incident with the broken scouter or that I can sense _ki_; he probably won't like the idea that I am much stronger than him. In fact, I think I am the strongest on the whole planet, but it wouldn't be wise to run around telling that to everybody.

"I don't know, Sire, I have not been registered yet."

His eyebrows furrow in dismay, his cold glare becomes impenetrable. 

"And why not?"

Swallowing hard, I answer truthfully.

"General Marduku has taken me to a Registration office, and the Ueisutodamupu-jin there said that I have a part of my personality closed away. He has tried to break through the barriers several times, but he has never succeeded so far, so he hasn't been allowed to register me yet."

The king nods gravely, a strange glint in his eyes that I decidedly don't like. It is as if he was making future plans for me and they probably do not contain my well-being.

"Very well. Your punishment will be to fight ten Elites at the same time. If you should happen to defeat all of them, I will arrange a meeting of twelve Elders. They can surely break through the barrier in your mind. If you are beaten by the Elites, you are going to be branded a slave and sold off. Understood?"

I am completely shocked. Surely he can't be serious in selling me off to some slave traders? And the other option, having the wall removed, isn't much better. I am practically stuck between a rock and a hard place. What am I supposed to do? In a daze, I nod and let the king guide me to the sparring grounds. How the hell did I get myself in this mess?

----------

The prince was not as strong as Bardoku, but Marduku still had to struggle to keep up with the youngster. What surprised Marduku the most though was the fact that he wasn't beaten into the ground immediately by the prince. The practice with the kid had given him a large repetoir of techniques, and with those he could almost keep Prince Vegeta in check. 

They had been sparring for about four hours when some commotion ensued at the entrance to the sparring grounds. When he looked over to the door, he could see the king and Bardoku walk in together with a few Elites. Everybody stopped what they were doing and bowed to the king, even his own son. 

Then the king explained the situation and asked for some more warriors to compete in the fight. From experience Marduku knew that the kid was good, but this had to be the ultimate test. Never hesitating, he entered against the kid, telling the prince to watch the fight closely. Prince Vegeta snorted, but he didn't turn away.

Clearing the place from all other fighters, they lined up facing the boy who had a disturbed expression on his face. Then, the king gave the sign to start the fight. Some Elites were very eager to beat the kid and rushed forwards to engage into battle, the others followed suit immediately behind. Only Marduku took his time to fly up into the air and prepare a large energy blast. 

The boy seemed to cope with the assault quite well, he nimbly evaded punches and kicks, and each and every one of his strikes did enough damage to send a fighter crashing down to the floor. Soon, the nine fighters were lying on the floor, unconscious. Then, Bardoku lifted all of his attention up to Marduku who was still gathering energy. The boy smirked and put his hands to his right side, forming a bowl with his palms. His clear voice filled the room.

"Kaaa – meeeeh – haaaaah – meeeeh – "

A bright blue ball had formed between his fingers, and Marduku grew nervous. He had never seen so much energy in one spot, but he dared not to hesitate.

"SILENT TWISTER!"

"HAAAAAAH!"

With a scream, both attacks were released at the same time, clashing together in a huge boom. Marduku continued to pump more energy into his purple beam, but the boy's attack never retreated. Instead, the odds were slowly turning in favor of the kid as his blue attack gradually was pushing Marduku's Silent Twister back. Just before the General was burned though, Bardoku cut the energy flow and let the attack hit him.

A huge explosion was heard, and a cloud of dust was blown from the floor. Marduku was still hovering in the air, waiting for the results to show. When the cloud settled down, the brat was revealed standing there completely unharmed, only his spandex was slightly singed. Then, the kid disappeared, and Marduku felt a hard hand hitting him in the neck. Before he had time to think, he was unconscious and fell to the ground.

The king stepped over the fallen warriors and nodded.

"Very well, brat, I will call the twelve Elders. Be here tomorrow at sunrise. You are dismissed."

----------

We have settled in a big meditation room in the palace. Long white curtains decorate the walls, and a deep red plush carpet covers the floor. It is quite airy because on two sides, there are huge windows without glass in them which lets the wind blow through from one side to the other. The twelve Elders sit down in a circle together with Rabishu-sama; and I am in their middle. They all are Ueisutodamupu-jin, but none of them has a skin as light as Rabishu-sama. Many are colored a navy blue, and some are even as dark as midnight blue, and all of them wear scarlet red robes.

The have introduced themselves to me, but I can't remember most of the names, only some. Gaabichu, the head of the telepathic circle, does all the talking.

"So you are the chibi Rabishu has told us about."

I feel anxious being the focus of the circle of thirteen pairs of eyes. They all broadcast an air of friendliness and curiosity, but I am still nervous. I don't like the thought of what is coming: thirteen powerful telepaths invading my most private corners. I don't mind Rabishu-sama's presence, but I'm not sure yet if I can trust the others. I will have to decide that soon, though, because trust will be a huge factor. 

I'm not sure if it is possible for me to let them open the retreat, if I can handle it. I know that I have to do this to be accepted into the Saiyan society, but that doesn't mean that I am comfortable with it. All the previous attempts have failed, and perhaps there is a good reason why they were unsuccessful. This secluded chamber in my head still spawns horrible nightmares that disturb my sleep, and those dreams are only hinting at what is hidden behind the barrier.

"Lower your mental defenses."

Choking my fear at its roots, I spontaneously decide to trust the Elders, and I am going to comply with their orders. 

I draw in a deep breath, hold it for a while, and then exhale slowly. I repeat this exercise a few times until I am calm enough, then I close my eyes and picture the stone wall surrounding my thoughts. Focusing, I let it disappear to reveal my inner core, consisting of molten fire, to the thirteen members of the circle. Now, Rabishu-sama is taking the lead because he knows me best. He also effuses a calming aura and I feel safely protected by him. He tells one of the circle to guide me into a very deep trace so that my resistance will be lessened. 

A light is floating closer to me and a pair of red eyes appear in midst of the bright glow. The eyes are drawing me towards their pupil-less center, calling me, beckoning me to give them my full attention. I let myself be caught because Rabishu-sama has told me that this will make everything easier – for them and for me. The crimson glare is becoming the center of my awareness, holding me, making the surrounding environment unimportant. Only the scarlet, almond-shaped eyes exist and they demand all of my attention, making me loose all orientation and all sense of time.

I don't know how many seconds, minutes, or even hours have passed, but suddenly some indistinguishable feeling is nagging at the back of my head, disturbing the peace I have found within the blazing red, gentle eyes. As if sensing my troubles, the attraction of the scarlet stare increases until it has caught me yet again in a web of soothing, timeless, mindless numbness. 

But apparently the crimson eyes are either weakening or the disturbance is becoming stronger because the nagging feeling in the back of my mind has increased to a dull, pounding headache. The red glare is starting to loose its magic, and my awareness of what is going on around me is returning. 

My first impression is that many lights are trying to burn a deep darkness within me away. Something in that darkness is calling for me, begging me to protect it from the lights, begging me to keep its secrets hidden. The harder the lights are burning the worse my headache gets, and the more desperate the pleading from the darkness becomes. I have to get the lights away, but I can't move, something is holding me back, something strong, something I become afraid of.

Struggling vainly against my bonds, I feel the pain getting worse and panic is starting to seep into my heart. These lights are trying to destroy the blackness and free whatever horror had been caught in it. My other personality. All the horrible nightmares that haunt me even during the day. No, I don't want to have those memories back; I don't want to share my body with anybody I don't even remotely know.

Ah, that's not quite right. I do know something about him. He was a warrior, a superb fighter, but he had been tortured for a very long time. He has almost gone insane. I don't want to go insane, too. I don't want to know what made him retreat. I don't think I could survive it. Please stop!

But the lights are burning, burning, burning, searing into the darkness, and I can't move. Stop it! Leave me alone! Let me go! I have changed my mind! I don't trust you any more, and I want you to get out of my brain!!!

Suddenly, a vision appears in front of my eyes, a well-known vision. A bloodied and bruised body is hanging in shackles from the ceiling. He is slowly loosing his life as the blood is trickling down his limbs and collecting in a dark pool beneath his dangling feet. But this time, something is different. I can't recognize what it is, though, and it scares me deeply.

His chin is resting on his collarbone, his breath comes in shallow gasps, his eyes are unfocused. And all the time, the crimson liquid is trickling, dropping, collecting on the floor. The uneasy feeling is growing, and I want to get away before something terrible happens, but I can't. I am tied to this place, and I can't move a muscle; I am forced to watch him bleed and suffer. With horror in my eyes, I look over his limp form again and again, and my fear is growing.

Suddenly, I know what is wrong. It is nothing that is visible, I can just feel it deep down in my heart. This is not the life- and mindless body I have encountered in so many dreams before. His head is twitching slightly, and I hold my breath. What is going to happen?

With a terrible exertion, he gradually raises his head until his deep black eyes catch mine. Only a tiny spark that is hidden beneath all of the pain tells me that he has not given up on life just yet. His eyes are so dull and dreary, filled with unfathomable suffering that does not only originate from his broken body. 

His horrific gaze is drilling right into my soul, leaving a burning hole behind that is aching, telling me to get away from him before he injures me even more. But I am held tightly in place, forced to watch him, forced to bear his inhuman stare. 

Please let me go, I don't like it here. He is scary with his blood-flecked skin and the deep gashes, and I don't want to know what hurt him this way!

But nobody listens to my pleading, not the one who is holding me, nor him. I don't even think he can actually see me; I seem to be an invisible spectator, destined to watch the events unfolding without any chance to change them. I give out a desperate sob that I can't control, and look his terrible injuries over and over again.

A door hidden in shadows is opening to reveal a tall woman. She is clad in red leather with a golden half moon emblazoned between her breasts, and a short crimson rod is dangling on a small golden chain from her wrist. Her long blond hair is strictly braided in a tight plait that is hanging down her back, accentuating her finely chiseled features. Her skin is scarred badly, too, just like mine; but those cold, emotionless icy blue eyes send shivers of recognition running up and down my spine.

This is the girl/woman from the other part of my dreams. She is the one who had been tortured by/was torturing some unrecognizable males. And she is the one who popped into my mind when Rabishu-sama had done the registration. Every fiber of my body can feel the danger that is flowing from her in waves, and all I want to do is to hide from her so that I don't have to watch what is going to happen next.

Something has clicked in my mind, and I know that she was the one who had forced my other self to shut his mind off. Please don't make me watch them, I can't bear it! 

But you can't always run away ... 

I know I can't, but it is just too much and too painful. 

Frozen in my spot, I watch in horror how the woman is hurting him. A touch of the rod makes him flinch, and it seems that she loves to stab him right into his open wounds. So far, he hasn't screamed yet, but he is trembling from the agony inflicted on him. The crimson flow is turning a more vibrant hue, and it is trickling faster whenever she opens an old wound or creates new ones. 

His expression has morphed into one of utter pain and utter agony, and his huge black eyes are windows to his soul through which the burning hell he is suffering, is screaming through. Please stop it, can't you see how hurt he is? He doesn't deserve this! How can you be so cruel? 

Tears are welling forth into my wide eyes, I want to protect him, but I can't. Somebody is still holding me, and I fight my restraints with all I have, but they are just too strong. My muscles, or whatever I am using, are hurting, my lungs are burning; however, I don't make any progress. In front of me, I can hear his harsh, pained breathing which is accompanied by a strange wheezing sound.

I realize that the wheezing noise is his suppressed screams, and I redouble my efforts of getting rid of my restraints, not caring about my pained muscles. I am fighting for all I am worth, but I accomplish nothing. Why do you have to do this to him? Hasn't he already suffered enough?

The pained grunts are starting to turn into screams, and every scream is stabbing deep into my heart, awakening fear and ... anger.

His eyes are still locked with mine, and I can see all rational thought has left him, he is caught in an endless void of pain. But the gentleness has not left his contorted features, he doesn't seem to harbor any grudge against the woman. He rather seems to stay with her willingly, because I can see no attempts to escape her. He should easily be strong enough to snap the shackles, even in his weakened state.

Then I recognize a strange ring around his neck. It looks like the collar of a dog, and I haven't noticed it before because it is the same color as the blood that is running down his whole body. And the same color as the girl/woman is wearing. A crimson red that brings forth bad memories. 

Some knowledge that is popping up in my head tells me that this is to control his _ki_. So he can't access his strength, even if he wants to. My anger and my rage at that inhuman treatment are growing so fast that I am consumed in a sea of blazing red hatred. I don't even hear my labored breathing, and I am completely surprised when I am suddenly free. With an animalistic roar from deep within my soul, I jump at the woman in red.

She must have heard me, because she is turning around in slow-motion. But I am too fast, I come down and I tackle her, careful to not let her touch me with the rod … her Agiel. She is not all that tough, because she is immediately crushed beneath my body. Making sure that she is knocked out, I approach the other me carefully. 

He is limply hanging from the ceiling, bleeding, moaning in pain. Quickly, I unhook the handcuffs and rip them off his wrists. His tortured body has not enough energy left to stand, so he collapses on the floor before I can catch him. With a quick burst of _ki_, I snap the collar off his throat, and then I can feel his energy. It is huge, gigantic, much bigger than the energy I have. 

I am completely in awe at such a display of power, and I want to ask him countless questions. Who exactly is he, where does he come from, and where did he get such unfathomable powers? Slowly, he is recovering under my watchful gaze. His wounds are healing in fast forward, and soon, he is able to get up.

"Thank you."

I am shocked at his voice; I didn't think he would talk to me as I am only the one who temporarily controlled his body. I thought he would just kill me and take his body back; he surely has enough power for this.

"No, I would never do this."

What? Can he read my thoughts? That is really a miracle. Or is it no miracle? He is me, and I am him, so why should we not be able to read each other's thoughts?

_Yes, that is right. We have a strong mental connection, and we both are the same person. I would never think about killing you because you have as much right to live as I have. We both are important as we are quite different from each other._

_How are we different?_

_You are innocent, you know how to wield our mind powers and part of our _ki_. I on the other hand have a lot of guilt on my shoulders, but am an expert at fighting and _ki_-manipulation. What you have seen from our abilities so far is only a very small part that has already become reflexes ingrained in our body. Together, we would be almost unbeatable._

_Why?_

_We are two halves of a whole, and while I do physical attacks, you can do mind attacks. Our split mind never has to rest completely; when one is tired, the other one can take over. We would be the ultimate fighter._

_What if I don't want to fight?_

_I usually don't want to fight, either, but sometimes there is no other option. I promise you that I will always respect your wishes as far as possible. After all, I want to share our body, and we both have to take great responsibilities for that. Would you agree to those conditions?_

I am completely stunned. Sharing a body? That concept sounds very strange to me, and I have to think about it in private. The Elders, whom I can still feel lurking around in my mind, only distract me, so I shut them out without hurting them. 

Wow, that was so easy, did my mental powers also grow with the reuniting? I do feel a lot stronger now, not only in body but also in mind. The question is if the other me is trustworthy and if I can handle having him near me all the time. What about his memories, will they become my memories, too, or are they going to be some part of our brain that only he can access?

What am I supposed to do?

A/N: Well, that is my first real cliffhanger in this whole story. I thought I should let the tensions build before the last chapter (Yes, the next chapter is going to be the last chapter) so that I can have a glorious end (not!). So what do you think of this chapter? Good/Bad? 

Shameless self-advertising: If you like my style of writing and the character of Vegeta, check out my other story: Rebirth          It is a 1st-person A/U of how Vegeta escapes the terror of Furiza and strands on Earth. There he meets – well, I think you can guess whom he will meet. Warning: you will need a strong stomach for that one, because, unlike this story, I wrote some very graphic rape scenes. There is also a lot of cussing, so if you don't like it, don't read it.


	10. Epilogue

A/N: I think this was the hardest chapter of them all to write, I just didn't know how to finish this story. But finally, I am done. Whew. Of all the stuff I have written so far, I have never finished any except for this one. It is strange how captivating the first chapters can be, they practically write themselves, but the further the plot develops, the harder it gets to writ. And the end is the worst. I hope you are not disappointed! 

To smfandonja: Nah, this can't go on forever, I have been running out of ideas, and I feel as if this story was nearing its end. Enjoy this last chapter (sorry for the wait)!

To missjuniper: Thanks! But it has to end, sorry! I am busy with my schoolwork and my other fanfic, and a third one is in preparation, so it is good that this one came to a conclusion. Enjoy this chapter!

To SS2 Megami-sama: I am really sorry for the wait. Really, I am. Have I already said that I am sorry? No? Well, I am sorry. If you want to know for my reasons for not updating for such a long time, read the A/N. Is your Yami side also satisfied? Your Yami should keep an eye out for the third story which I am going to post soon (well, the first chapter anyways), perhaps it could find some stray millenium items in that one. I recently discovered my liking for Yugi-oh vampire stories, so I decided to give it a shot (perhaps your Yami will like it, I can promise you it won't be anything for sweet Hikaris who like lots of fluff. I hate fluff.)

Epilogue 

What kind of demon has possessed me to make such a ridiculous suggestion? 'To unite to become the supreme being'? That sounds corny to me, just what the evil villain from a standard movie would say. I have never been power-hungry before, so why did I suggest joining our forces in order to get stronger?

Sometimes I am a little bit afraid of myself. There are times where everything seems so distant, but so far, nothing has happened. However, I feel as if I had no control over myself during those times. I don't know what will happen if I loose my sanity again like at the Cell-games – 

  or with Mistress Denna. Her name strikes uncontrollable fear into my heart; although at the same time, I pity her for what she had to suffer through. She made me experience everything first-hand through our mind link, and I could _feel_ her sprit break under the tortures that were impended on her as if it was mine...

I am aware of the other me, the innocent me, following my trail of thoughts, and weakly I try to close myself off from him. I don't want him to become as tainted as I am…

But if you don't allow me to see, I can't trust you. And if we should reunite, we will have to share each other's memories. Otherwise I can't trust you.

Yes, why should he blindly accept my offer? Why would he want to live with me, another mind in his body? I don't think I have done anything to gain his trust. He will have to assure himself of my intentions; however, I hate to hurt him with my memories, him who has saved me from myself. I try to get that across to him, but he softly tells me that he _has_ to see.

He shows me the reoccurring nightmare that has been haunting his whole life of roughly ten or eleven days. My heart beats wildly with the fear that is flooding through the entire dream, the fear that he must have experienced every time. The pictures might not be familiar to him, but they are to me. They are all my memories until _her_ face and her memories, that she had shown me, appear. 

So she has not only affected me greatly, she is also haunting him. Feeling my resolve weakening when faced with his silent pleading for a reason, I finally give up my resistance and curl up in a corner of my mind, trying to protect myself from what is to come. Fear rises, and I hug my knees tightly, hiding my face in my arms. I don't want to see them again…

But nothing is happening. He doesn't do anything but stare at me, and his gaze seems to burn a hole into me. Sensing his sudden reluctance to look into my memory, his surprising care about me, I draw my courage together and slowly get out of my fetal position. I do not dare looking into his eyes when I urge him to go on because I am too ashamed. He does have a right to know with whom he is perhaps going to share a body and it is not within my right to deny him that. Steeling myself, I give him the ok-sign.

Nothing could have prepared me for the following experience. It is so infinitely painful when he swiftly accesses that part of me I am trying to forget. It is tearing, scraping, burning, violating my mind. All the old wounds that have never healed properly are ripped open again and start bleeding as I am forced to relive all of my horrible past.

Radditz' visit when I was four – and the death of my father 

****

**_The year in the wilderness together with Piccolo – with the constant knowledge that we are the only ones who can protect the world against the Saiya-jin_**

****

**_The arrival of Nappa and Vegeta – and the terrible feeling of helplessness when Piccolo sacrificed himself for me_**

****

**_The trip to Namek – the encounter with Furiza – Kuririn's death_**

****

**_The year afterwards when my father didn't come home_**

****

**_The following three years preparing for the androids – the need to become stronger than ever before_**

****

**_Then, finally, the year that had passed within a day – the endless whiteness of the Room of Spirit and Time – the painful transformation to Super-Saiya-jin_**

****

**_The fight against Cell – the pain when he squeezed me half to death – the even greater pain when he forced me to watch my friends slowly being killed by his hideous creations, the Cell Juniors – the ultimate pain when my father had to sacrifice himself because of the mistakes I had made_**

****

**_The year of depression afterwards_**

****

**_The arrival of Goten who was a constant remainder of my failure, but who also brought a lot of happiness for me_**

****

**_The two strange guys that had popped up in my room_**

****

**_The time with Mistress Denna – pain, suffering, agony – the brief moment of joy when we forged our Sharing – the horror when she made me experience her worst hours through our new mental bond – the feeling of being a girl, of being raped, of being broken over and over again – the beginning of insanity when she delved into my mind and showed me my failures over and over again – the act of desperation when I built up an iron wall around my core and retreated into my shelter – _**

****

****

**_             only to realize that I was caught within my own brain_**

****

****

**_Hopelessness – guilt – despair – self-hatred_**

****

He retreats, clearly shaken, terror in his eyes, trembling while he moves away from me. 

I don't let him go though. I hold him tightly, crying on his chest as he cries on mine. Sometime later, we slowly crawl out of our tight embrace, just looking at each other. Finally, he speaks with an emotion-laden, trembling voice.

I am sorry. I should not have doubted you. Are you still willing to share your body with me? I am aware of the fact that I am only a small part of you, but would you allow me to share what is rightfully yours?

I am so surprised that he hasn't turned his back on me after what I have done in my past, that I can't say anything. Wordlessly, I get up and hug him in deep gratitude, not noticing that both of us start glowing, drifting together, until we finally become one being again.

----------

The being that was neither Gohan nor Bardoku but neither both of them, got up slowly and walked around, testing out his limbs that hadn't been used for quite a while. It felt strange, two minds sharing one body, but it made no difference to him. He knew what he had to do, so he focused all his thoughts on the place where he wanted to be. To his surprise, the teleportation move worked, and he appeared on top of a beautiful, intricately woven design that consisted of only one line, seemingly moving like a living being.

He immediately felt the presence of a very powerful person, old, wise, and experienced, but he chose to ignore it as it posed no danger. The outside that could be seen through tall windows consisted of neon green grass and a pink sky dotted with some fluffy, white clouds. The boy with two minds did not flinch or react otherwise when the person started speaking in his head after he had finished his inspection of his surroundings. He just listened quietly.

"You have found me. Congratulations, that is more than many have accomplished. I apologize for all you had to suffer through. I know how much it hurt, I had to go through the very same trials of mind and body. Do you know why you are here?"

The boy thought about the question for several minutes, but he came to no conclusions even with his combined intelligence. There was still an inaccessible spot in his mind, and it was guarded by a picture of the very same line that wound on the floor. The being seemed to have followed his thoughts as he said:

"Very well. Try to open the barrier on your own, just like you have freed yourself on Vegeta-sei."

The boy studied the barrier and probed it with some tendrils of his mind. It was very resilient, so brute force would accomplish nothing, and it was so tight that not even particles as thin as air could get through. There had to be another way. 

Carefully, he grabbed one of the thin threads that spun the complex ornament. He was delighted to see that it came off easily without making any knots or ties. One by one, he started unraveling the threads of the picture, and finally, the memory became clear to him. The Gohan-part of his mind shuddered as the vision overcame him, and the Bardoku-part just watched curiously.

----------

"We must leave you here, our Lord has given us orders. Good luck to you."

With those words, the huge pink guy and the small purple man with the white Mohawk retreated and left Gohan alone in the big, heavily decorated room with huge windows through which a strange planet could be seen. The grass was neon green, the sky was pink, and the gravity was about 20g. The most prominent feature in the room was a big, circular ornament that consisted of a silvery and golden line that was woven in a very intricate design and seemed to move on its own accord.

Suddenly, he realized that he wasn't alone anymore. A huge, suffocating presence was there together with him in that room, a soft, loving, gentle presence, an infinitely wise, strong and awe-inspiring presence which he had never felt before. 

Without thinking about it, Gohan sank to his knees and bowed, honoring and praising the mighty presence. The presence was so strong that it could kill him within a few seconds, but he was not afraid of it as it exuded compassion and love. The presence became more dense, and it manifested into the body of an old man. 

He was an old, wrinkled man whose head was bald from age, and he was shrouded in long, purple robes. He was hunched over tiredly, but his silver-specked eyes still glinted very much awake and showed that he was by no means the old doddery grandfather he outwardly seemed to be. His voice was soft and gentle, but firm and strong like the power he exuded.

"Rise."

Without thinking twice about it, Gohan complied and got up, marvelling about the presence.

"Do you know why you are here?"

Numbly, he shook his head. Why should a person, a father-murderer like him be called in front of such a high being?

"I see, you still blame yourself for your father's death. Why don't you believe your friends and your family? But that is not what I wanted to talk to you about. As you can see, I am very old and my life span is almost over. Do you want to be my successor?"

What? Gohan was completely confused. Him being the successor of the presence in front of him? That had to be a joke, there was no possibility that he could be serious. Gohan was still a boy with very little experience, and he should become successor to such a person?

"I was a little boy once, too, although that was more than a million years ago. Yes, I am very old, and I am tired. I have been looking for a successor to my position for more than 5.000 years, but so far I haven't had any luck. My job is very tiring, but somebody has to do it, as I can't let the many different dimensions go to the dogs. But not many are suited for such a difficult job, so you would have to go through a test to see if you are able to accomplish the tasks demanded from you."

"But why did you choose me?"

"Because you are special. Not only do you have great mental and physical powers that have not been awakened yet, but you also possess a strange connection to your grandfather Bardoku that even I can't explain. He says he has been waiting for you ever since the day he died and that you have to go through the test I have decided on for you, but he refuses to tell me anything else. And his mental powers are so great that they rival my own. Would you obey to his wishes?"

His grandfather? He had never heard of his father's father, but the name 'Bardoku' sounded oddly familiar to him, it touched something inside him, and that something urged him on to accept the offer. Gohan's voice almost sounded like a stranger to himself when he finally answered.

"Yes, I will."

Gohan felt himself getting drowsy, but he couldn't look away from those sparkling, silver-specked eyes. Soon, he sank down to the floor and everything went blank.

----------

"Do you see now?", HE asked.

The dual being nodded gently. His existence alone was a grave paradoxon of time, he was his grandfather and his grandson at the same time. To make sure that he was born, he would have to split apart into two entities again, into his grandfather Bardoku and his grandson Gohan so that he/his grandfather could sire his son/father. Not to mention that the time-line might be disturbed by the non-existence of Bardoku.

He shook his head. All that was giving him a headache. How did Bardoku know what to tell HIM? Turning towards the old man again, he uttered in a carefully controlled voice.

"Would you help me ensuring my existence? Could you split me apart again, send Bardoku back to Vegeta-sei and Gohan back into his own timeline, both without memories? And could you make Bardoku remember this conversation as soon as he dies?"

HE nodded.

"Yes, I can. But before that, I would like to know if you are going to keep the word Gohan has given me."

"I will tell you as soon as Gohan and Bardoku are reunited once again. That will be when Gohan reaches the same age that Bardoku has died at. Until then, I cannot give you an honest answer because I can't speak for my future self. At the moment, it is my first priority to ensure that the paradoxon I am is not going to mess up this reality."

The being that was neither Gohan nor Bardoku, neither grandson nor grandfather, caught the unspoken whiff of acceptance and … pride … when HE nodded. HE spread HIS arms, and soon, the room was humming with HIS energy. Looking one last time at HIM, the dual being gave up his existence for the sake of the two boys it consisted of.

----------

Opening his eyes, Bardoku stared into a pair of crimson orbs that belonged to Rabishu. Sleepily, he looked around. All the elders were gone, only Rabishu-sama had remained. The warm voice of the Ueisutodamupu-jin woke him up completely.

"The barrier in your mind has been opened. There had some sort of split personality been hidden behind it, but you have eliminated it. We have freed the memories of your past and you pose no danger to us – you just had a slight case of amnesia. So you are now accepted as a full member of Saiyan society. General Marduku is going to show you to your new quarters."

Yes, that was what he had always wanted. Being part of the people he so clearly belonged to, and he could even remember his past. He had been sent to a small, blue planet and there he had grown up peacefully because he had hit his head and forgot his purging mission. A Saiya-jin had landed on it about a year ago, and had tried to convince him to go back to Vegeta-sei. 

Bardoku had not taken kindly to the battle-lusting creature and had given him a good run for his money. In the end though, he had been defeated and was thrown into his space-pod. The sudden loss of his home must have caused his amnesia to fade, and when he had landed on Vegeta-sei, his old personality must have surfaced. But why did he feel that there had been so much more behind the barrier?

But it was gone now and the Ueisutodamupu-jin had said that there had been nothing else behind the wall. Shrugging his shoulders, he got up and followed the Ueisutodamupu-jin through a set of doors out into the bright blue sunlight and the purple sky.

----------

He woke up when his head banged against the table. Rubbing the sore spot, Gohan scolded himself for falling asleep over his math work. He knew better than that. But the dream he had had was quite interesting, something about jumping through time and space, and him being his own grandfather.

Gohan chuckled. His mind was making up really weird things, perhaps it was a sign that he was studying too much. For a moment, he had even thought he had a scar over one of his eyes, like the one he got in his dream. He should lay off some of the brain-work, because in those two years, he had done enough studying to last his whole life – although he knew his mom would have a fit.

But it was time that he finally did something for himself, so far he had only been doing what everybody expected of him. He had been studying for his mother, he had been baby-sitting Goten, and he had displayed a happy-go-lucky-façade for everybody else. Within those two years, he had constantly obeyed his mother and never fought, although he knew he had to keep in shape because he was now the strongest being on earth. The next time there was an attack, he wanted to be prepared and not sent into battle without any clue of his abilities. And he had come to love fighting as long as it wasn't a life-or-death battle.

Smiling sincerely for the first time after his father's death, he jumped out of the window and flew into the direction he sensed Piccolo's ki in. His blood was singing with anticipation, he was itching for a good spar, and he was looking forward to fighting his sensei. He was finally starting to make peace with his Saiyan side and his haunting past.

-----The End-----


	11. I See My Pain

To shadowphoenix2: Well, if you happen to read it over again, you might want to read this chapter, too. I hope you like it. Thank you so much for your praise!

To Alexandra Alyra Sarienna: Erhm, I would love to do a sequel, but at first, I want to finish my other story 'Rebirth'. And then I will have to have some inspiration, which I direly lack at the moment…

To Shiktona: Thank you again for writing this wonderful poem, and I hope you like the way I incorporated it into my chapter. I am sorry that it took me so long, but finally: here it is!

To white-rice: Yeah, Terry Goodkind is one of my favorite authors! Can't wait till the next volume comes out…

To Sailor Wade: Oh yes, I have, and I think is a really great book. I enjoyed it very much, and I am reading it again and again…

To Shea Loner: Thank you!

To Sailor Moshie: Erh, well, I doubt that I could sell more books that Tolkien or Rowling (although they do NOT happen to be on my fav. Author's list), because I don't seem to be able to convince myself to get my butt in front of the computer… But thanks a lot for your confidence in me!

A/N:                              **********REALLY IMPORTANT*********

Shiktona (or Shane Martinez) was so nice and wrote this little poem 'I See My Pain'! I liked it so much that I decided to write this chapter to it. It goes best between the chapters 2 and 3, but I think you can also read it on its own. Many thanks to Shane, she is the one who made this chapter possible! (and now I hope that I didn't misspell her name…)

I See My Pain  
  
  


Yesterday, he had woken up in the tiny, dark cell. Today – or has it been more than a day already? He could not tell the time anymore because the grey walls were timeless. At one time, he had started counting seconds, and the seconds had turned into minutes and hours. A day. A whole day or even more, because between that counting, he had sometimes blacked out, and in the borderland between life and death, time became meaningless. But today, he had woken up to the cruel sting of the Agiel right in between his shoulder blades.

My body 's broke

He had been sent into a coughing fit, almost choking on his own blood. It had hurt so badly, even worse than the blast he had shielded Vegeta from. But he knew he would always get up to face her. Collecting his strength, he had managed to get his feet under him before she had decided to give him another example of the Agiel's abilities. He would always get up because that was all he could do.

  
My soul is burned

He had not been able to protect his father. No, he had been too weak for that. He had been selfish, wanting the monster to suffer for his pleasure. He had not listened, and this was his punishment. Was he in hell? No, he did not believe in the concept of hell. There was only the Home For Infinite Losers. A harsh chuckle poured over his lips. Yes, it was his fault that he knew about HFIL. If he had been stronger, his father would not have died the first time, and neither the second time. They would be living happily together, never thinking about concepts like Hell or HFIL. How he longed for a normal family. But he had destroyed that chance. It was his fault.

  
My mind is gone

Between the few clear moments he had, he was caught in a delirious haze of pain and guilt, his sole focus being the rod that was hurting him so much. Even when he had his eyes open, he did not see what was in front of him because it was always the same. Always the same. Only the pain was changing. Sometimes it increased, sometimes it decreased, like the tides in an ocean. An ocean of pain.

  
Completely turned

Oh, his mind produced strange analogies, but they were fitting. An ocean of pain. The wasteland at death's doorstep. The molten lava pulsing through his veins, burning, searing. He had learned a lot about pain. All the different levels, from a low throbbing throughout his body to an agony so great that his mind could not grasp it. It would simply shut down then, but she would make him aware again.

  
  
I block off the pain

He tried to endure, to suffer silently, to keep his spirits high, but he had to face the harsh reality and realize he was failing. Failing badly. He tried to think of anything else, to focus on pleasant memories, but she had the uncanny ability to make her appear at the center of his attention. The rod was dancing over his body, petting him painfully, jabbing him when he was expecting it the least. He tried so hard. He did not want to show her how much he hurt. He tried to forget the pain. But he failed.

  
as best I can

He failed badly. Like he had always failed. He had never been more than a failure. He could never be as strong as his father. Mostly because he had killed him. His father had to sacrifice himself for the sake of the world. Just because he had failed to defeat Cell. Was this his punishment? Perhaps the gods had decided that HFIL was still too good for him, and instead left him to suffer while he was still living. But for how long would he be living?

  
but I lose my strength

His strength was giving out beneath him, and the moment of clarity, the moment when he had found time to curse himself, was gone as if it had never existed. She had plunged him right back into the haze that surrounded the dangerous border between life and death. He was fighting to surface again, to get away from the gaping abyss opening in front of him, but she held him right there with immovable strength. His fight was mindless, merely his deepest survival instincts reacting; and slowly, in a humongous effort that cost him a lot of his precious reserves, he managed to tip the balances towards life.

  
and it starts again  
  


His conscious mind surfaced from his last brush with death, and he almost wished he hadn't. His broken arm hurt so much, and his throat was so sore from the coughing he had done earlier that morning. Or was it already another day? He could not tell anymore, and he didn't care anymore. It was his body that was trying to catch his attention by screaming warnings through his overloaded nerves. She was stroking the Agiel softly over his bare chest, and from the grin on her lips, he could read that she liked how he was writhing in agony. She once had said that she liked the look in his eyes when he had just come back from the wasteland, and that she would always try to get it back onto his face. Without any forewarning, she pressed the tip of the Agiel against his tail-spot, and a searing wave of pain swept through him, burning away at his mind, starting the vicious circle of agony and pain again.

  
I start to lose

Yes, in his few wakeful moments, he realized that he was starting to lose. His life was slowly draining away, and the pain was eating at his mind. How long would he be able to resist her? How often would he be able to open his eyes again after she had brought him back from death's doorstep? When would his strength finally give out and make him stumble over the edge?

  
my sanity

When would his mind be so clouded that he couldn't distinguish reality from his imagination anymore? More than once, he had retreated himself into his own fantasy-world, where everything was fine. Where there was no pain, no guilt, no Cell, no Agiel. Where everybody was living happily, his mother, his brother, his father, … and Mistress Denna. Where nobody would worry about anything. 

  
but I still fight on

Those illusions were the hardest to shake off, because he actually WANTED to believe them. He wanted to have the perfect family, the perfect life, the perfect world. But some small details would always make his fantasies shatter, whether he wanted it or not. Sometimes it would be as small as a butterfly that was caught in a spider's web. It seemed that even in his own little world, he could not escape from the death that was surrounding him. And that was what he was fighting. Death. Oh no, not his death. He didn't care about what happened to him. He only cared about others. And he had to live because they would be sad if he was gone. He was fighting for them. 

  
because I can see

He was fighting for them because it tore at his heart to see them hurt. He had seen all the pain and all the grief he had caused, and he hated himself for it. His mother had looked so infinitely broken when he had brought her the sad news of his father's death. And every night, she was crying herself to sleep, thinking that nobody heard her. But Saiyan ears were keen. He had been able to see that her once happy face was turning into one of sorrow and anguish, and she had suddenly looked so old… with eyes speaking of suffering well beyond any human limits.

  
  
that in her eyes

His mother's eyes were so different from those harsh, cold, blue ones piercing his soul. Mistress Denna had forced him to look at her, and he couldn't help but shudder at the cruelty lurking behind those two mirrors shimmering in the color of honed steel. She always made him catch her stare when she was feeling up to it; but at other times, she punished him sharply for as much as even glancing at her. Honestly, he didn't understand her – most of the time. The only time when he thought he had glimpsed a fraction of her true self was during that very first lesson. But what exactly was that what he had seen?

  
there's something strange

Those icy blue mirrors had come down for a split-second, and he had seen something strange lurking behind them. When he thought about it – he had not only seen it once, but many more times. He had always seen it after he had fought his way back from the borderland, from that infinitely black abyss that was patiently waiting for his soul. He must have caught her unaware then, because she had seemed to have let her guard down; and that being, that woman behind the cruel mask, was nothing like the heartless, twisted monster delighting in bringing pain to others. 

  
in her eyes

Her eyes had suddenly seemed so vulnerable, so tender, so full of emotion. The innocent girl that must have been buried deep inside her mind, was silently begging him to help her, help her escape from that cruel woman she had become. Those eyes were so questioning, so pleading; and something he could not immediately recognize was dancing through them. He tried to look closer, advancing towards her until their noses and their foreheads almost touched. Then, all of a sudden, he realized what he was looking at and reeled back in shock. In her eyes, he found a mirror image of himself. Her eyes looked as guilt-ridden and haunted, as pained and hurt as his. In her eyes… Yes, in her eyes…

  
I see my pain.


End file.
